


Shields Will Be Broken, A Realm Will Be Forged (Old Version, Rewrite is up)

by lightifer



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: A Game of Thrones, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crusader Kings 2 - Freeform, Economics, F/M, Politics, Self-Insert, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:35:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23654689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightifer/pseuds/lightifer
Summary: He smiled as he did it. Hundreds of thousands would die and yet Joffrey smiled. In that moment, Jamie knew that he had stabbed the wrong king, and yet even as his hands twitched, yearning to pick up a sword, he stilled it. Nevertheless. Joffrey caught the movement. With a bittersweet smile, he asked, "Are you going to stab me too... Father?"
Relationships: Joffrey Baratheon/Margaery Tyrell
Comments: 21
Kudos: 62





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on a game of CK2 AGOT (Crusader Kings 2: A Game of Thrones mod). This is based on my first playthrough, which I did not record. I honestly didn't think to. I didn't realize it would be so good. When the game ended, I realized that this was spectacular and deserved to become a reddit post. Reddit requested I turn it into a fanfic, hence this story.
> 
> I have since decided to go ahead and replay the game with a near identical set-up as the first time. The game isn't exactly the same, of course. The AI, for instance, is making slightly different choices, but it is largely similar. More importantly for you, I'm going to be basing a lot of the ways the strategies are going to go, as well as how long it will take for certain things to happen, on the game.
> 
> If you have any questions about what's canon, check the gameplay. If you have any questions about how the army winded up where it winded up, check the gameplay. If you have any questions about why Joffrey hasn't been assassinated yet, it's not plot armor. It's that no one killed him in game yet. Here is a link to the video:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCeHbhOdGy8&feature=emb_logo
> 
> This story is being crossposted to alternate history and fanfic. Here is the links to those:
> 
> https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/shields-will-be-broken-a-realm-will-be-forged-asoiaf-joffrey-si-oc.486208/page-10#post-20458721
> 
> https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13519163/1/Shields-Will-Be-Broken-A-Realm-Will-Be-Forged-Joffrey-SI-OC

At the tic-tic-tic of the clock situated on the wall next to him, the one who had become Joffrey Baratheon admitted, to himself if no one else, that canon had gone just fine for the one-who-was-him.  
  
Well up to the Purple Wedding, at any rate. That had a simple enough solution to it. After the Red Wedding, all he would have to do was kill Sansa. Without her to tattle to the Tyrells, everything would be fine.  
  
Failing that, he could just not drink wine at his wedding. No wine until he was wedded and bedded.  
  
And yet… and yet the Joffrey-of-before was a cunt and the war wouldn't end with the death of Stannis and Robb. There was Daenerys Targaryen to consider and the White Walkers besides.  
  
How would one go about preparing the realm for ice zombies and dragons? Guns perhaps? The printing press?  
  
Despite himself, Joffrey began laughing. A fool's solution. A permanent problem to replace a temporary one.  
  
He started to sing, despite himself, " _Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira, Les aristocrates à la lanterne! Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira, Les aristocrates on les pendra!"_  
  
As he sang his mind translated those lyrics to English. "Ah! It'll be fine, It'll be fine, It'll be fine, aristocrats to the lamp posts! Ah! It'll be fine, It'll be fine, It'll be fine! The aristocrats, we'll hang them!"  
  
Gunpowder and the printing press wouldn't solve much. What it would do was signal the beginning of the end. The first step in a long road to a democratic revolution.  
  
In the medieval era a good warrior, a knight, was a near-hereditary caste of warriors. They were expensive to train and arm, limiting opportunities to become one to the nobility, and more importantly, they were slow to train. A noble training to become a knight started at four and trained until they were twenty-one.  
  
Once trained, even the worst was still better than peasants and thanks to the skill and superior armaments, they were capable of mowing down dozens of them, especially when fighting in formation.  
  
If he made the switch to gunpowder, then soldiers would take about four months to train, giving a lot more power to the peasants. Given that starvation was imminent, that seemed like an awful idea.  
  
And of the printing press? Joffrey thought back and recalled the protestant reformation. How did that spread? How did the American Revolution? How did the French Revolution spread?  
  
The last thing Joffrey wanted was a pamphlet similar to that of Thomas Paynes 'Common Sense' spreading throughout his kingdom, calling for the downfall of the monarchy.  
  
Even if he managed to side-step all that nastiness while he lived, what of when he passed? Even if he were a just and wise king, there was no guarantee his son wouldn't be an imbecile.  
  
Monarchy was a bit like a coin flip. For every Catherine the Great, there would be an Ivan the Terrible. As Aerys the Mad demonstrates, it takes only one to topple a dynasty.  
  
Joffrey paused as he considered this. Casting his mind wide he contemplated the map of Westeros and went through the houses that were currently rebelling against him. For the first time, he saw not a war of survival, but a war of opportunity.  
  
In a single second, he saw it, his vision of what Westeros could be.  
  
"Hound," he shouted suddenly, drawing a clatter from the outside of his room. Creaking, the door opened to reveal Ser Sandor Clegane standing outside his door. In silence, he waited for Joffrey's command.  
  
"Order Pycelle to summon the High Septon." There was a gleam in Joffrey's eyes as he concluded his thoughts with, "I wish for a meeting."


	2. Chapter 2

Indubitably, the Joffrey of Old was in the wrong. He had started this war through sheer stupidity when he lopped off Eddard Stark's head, and the history books weren't likely to forget it.  
  
Joffrey the New aimed to make the best of the situation he had been handed. Once he had won the war, he intended to expand the powers and lands of the monarchy at the expense of his enemies. While that ensured that this war wouldn't be a total waste in his mind, "I want that land down by the river," didn't exactly make him seem like a good king. In all honesty, it made him seem like a greedy cunt.  
  
If Joffrey wanted to seem like a just king, he needed a better reason to march to war. He needed to rebrand this entire war, and to do that, he needed the support of the faith.  
  
Back in the medieval era, the church was the most useful source of propaganda a king had available. In a world as deeply moved by religious faith as medieval Europe, a sizeable portion of the populace would attend church every Sunday, where they would all hear the words of their local priest. Given his status as a holy man, questioning him would be heresy, regardless of whether you were questioning his statements on religious or political matters.  
  
To that end, whatever the priest said went mostly unchallenged and rapidly spread through a city, garnering support for the king. In this way, both Britain and France came to believe they carried the favor of God during the Hundred Years War.  
  
In this case, with Renly dead, the only king left in the war that remained in the Light of the Seven was Joffrey. Robb Stark worshipped the Old God's of the forest, Stannis Baratheon worshipped the Red God, and Balon Greyjoy worshipped the Drowned God.  
  
With this in mind, Joffrey began meeting with the High Septon, the Westerosi equivalent of a Pope. It took five minutes to get the High Septon to agree to denounce the other kings in the war. It took another three to get the High Septon to reaffirm Joffrey's title of "Defender of the Faith."  
  
Buoyed by his success, Joffrey eagerly pushed on to draw further concessions and promptly slammed his head onto a metaphorical brick wall. The High Septon would not budge.  
  
Joffrey wanted to consolidate power under the monarch, fusing church and state. The inspiration for this came from the Protestant Reformation and the 1534 Act of Supremacy, as passed by King Henry the Eighth.  
  
The legislation had recognized the monarch as the Supreme Head of the Church of England and gave civil laws precedence over religious laws.  
  
Joffrey wanted the same privileges, but the High Septon refused to part with his power for obvious reasons, leading to a stalemate. In the interim, the Septs had taken to denouncing his enemies as devil worshippers and heretics. If Joffrey wanted that to continue, he couldn't force the issue, despite having an army in the capital.  
  
This left him with only one option. Negotiating.  
  
In the end, three weeks of negotiations resulted in the High Septon being granted a seat on the Small Council, one that would be inherited by all High Septons for the rest of the time. Further, the monarchy would take on the burden of supporting the Septs financially. In exchange for this, the monarch would be recognized as the 'Supreme Head of the Faith of the Seven and Lord Temporal of the Faithful,' a title that would be purely ceremonial.  
  
By the end of the negotiations, both sides walked away feeling as though they had won. The High Septon felt as though he had tricked a child into increasing the wealth of the faith, as well as granting himself further opportunities to influence said boy-king. In exchange, all he had to do was support the only religiously acceptable king in this war, something he ought to have been doing anyway, as well as granting him a ceremonial title that didn't mean anything.  
  
Joffrey on the other hand? Joffrey had just won both the war, as well as the peace that would follow.  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
  
The chamber of the Small Council was filled with stifling silence as the King entered the hall, flanked by the High Septon and the Lord Commander of his Kingsguard.  
  
Glancing at his council briefly, Joffrey curled his lips into a tight smile. "No need to stop on our accord. Carry on as you were." Despite his words, Joffey stopped at the head of the table, at the seat occupied by Tyrion Lannister. Looking down at the horrid creature disdainfully, he spat, "You're in my seat, imp."  
  
Tyrion made a displeased sound, somewhere between a hum and a grunt. As he vacated his seat, Tyrion replied, "Forgive me, your grace," coming from Tyrion the 'your grace' sounded more like an insult than a title of honor, "We were not expecting you. And to what do we owe this unexpected… _Honor_?"  
  
The sarcasm heard faintly in the 'your grace' strengthened throughout the sentence until it coalesced into a near physical force at the word honor, causing Joffrey's eyes to narrow. "Watch your tongue, imp, lest I have it removed." Without waiting for Tyrion to reply, Joffrey continued, "For your information, I will be attending all meetings held by the small council from now on. As will the High Septon." Seating himself in the chair Tyrion had vacated with as much poise as he could Joffrey looked up at his council. Pretending not to notice their discomfort, he steepled his fingers and asked, "So, what news of the war?"  
  
There was a brief silence as the members of the small council considered what to say to this. Ultimately it was Vary's that spoke in his high effeminate voice, "Forgive me, your grace, but did you mention that the High Septon will be joining the small council?"  
  
"I did. It was a part of a deal that I've worked out with the faith. What news of the war?"  
  
Not thinking it wise to ask the King to clarify a second time, Varys instead decided to answer his question, "Not well, I fear. Robb Stark has won a great victory at Oxcross, a mere forty miles away from Casterly Rock. The Lannister host raised by Lord Stafford has been shattered by the Stark host, leaving them unchecked in the heart of the Westerlands."  
  
The council braced for the king’s anger. They knew him well enough to know that plenty of screaming and threats were soon to follow, most along the lines of 'I'll have his head,' and what-not. That expectation served to compound their surprise when all their king did was allow his lips to curl into a satisfied smile and let out a whispered, "Fool."  
  
Louder, King Joffrey said "Correct me if I'm wrong, but this means, in order to reach King's Landing, he would have to travel through the hills of the Morelands, through the mountain pass of Deep Den, before once more crossing the hills of Drox."  
  
Glancing down at the map, Tyrion was surprised to note that his nephew was correct, but "All he has to do is follow the Gold Road. Perhaps more importantly, Paynehall, Byford, and Bramsfort are all flat terrain. Plains. The Stark army will have a very easy time crossing over when the time comes. More importantly, at this rate, we won't have an army to challenge his when he does."  
  
To this, Joffrey was characteristically dismissive. "In the entirety of the North, there are less than a million people. In King's Landing alone, we have more than that, never mind the other great cities sworn to us like Rosby and Duskendale. We can raise another army from our smallfolk. The Stark boy can't. The army he has now is the army he will die with."  
  
Joffrey briefly though back to two other great generals who suffered similar fates. The first would be Hannibal Barca, general of Carthage, during the second Punic Wars, one of the best generals in the history of the Earth.  
  
He delivered devastating blow after devastating blow to the Roman armies. The Romans sent out a legion at Trebia. He annihilated them. The Romans raised another legion. He ambushed and annihilated it at Trasimene. The Romans fused four legions and sent out their mega legion at the Battle of Cannae. Cannae would be remembered as the bloodiest day in Roman History.  
  
What did the Roman Senate do? They raised more legions and tried again.  
  
To Hannibal, it must have felt like battling a hydra. The more legions he killed, the more legions the Romans raised and deployed. Even while he was winning every battle, Hannibal was bleeding skilled soldiers that he couldn't replace, while the Roman horde seemingly multiplied. Eventually they defeated him through sheer overwhelming numbers.  
  
Another example of this being true could be seen in the American Civil War, where Union General Ulysses S. Grant did the same thing to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The Confederates won every battle they fought against him, but Grant recognized the Confederates were at a severe disadvantage in men and material.  
  
In order to exploit this, Grant settled on a hyper-offensive strategy. He would go on the offensive, attack the Confederate troops, lose, move towards Richmond to force the Confederates to stay close, rinse and repeat.  
  
This strategy killed 88,000 men over six weeks, 55,000 on the side of the Union and 33,000 on the side of the Confederates. Despite losing close to 22,000 more soldiers than the Confederates did, the North had far more people and could afford to lose that many troops while the South could not.  
  
The end result? A Union victory.  
  
Drawing on the examples of history, Joffrey was confident that the North could not win. They didn't have the numbers. Given the skills of Robb Stark, the eventual victory would be bloody, but it was near inevitable.  
  
He couldn't explain this to the council though. Joffrey wasn't familiar enough with the history of Westeros to give equivalent examples, and they didn't look convinced either way. Instead, he said "Oxcross is 790 miles away from King's Landing. At it's fastest, an army can move 12 miles a day, so at max speed it would take 65 days, or just over two months to reach the capital. They'll be slowed further by terrain, weather, and the need to scavenge.  
  
"Stark depends heavily on being in unexpected places to win his victory. He has no supply route reaching his army now, and he requires… How big is his army?"  
  
The council looked shocked, none more so than Tyrion. "You've been studying," he noted.  
  
Joffrey considered how to reply to this before shrugging lightly, "'Engines of War' is a good book. We are at war now, and as king, I saw fit to familiarize myself with the topic. I have a loose idea as to how we might win the war, if I may."  
  
"Please," Baelish said with a laugh, seeking to flatter the king, "We are your small council. We serve at your pleasure, and we will see out your will."  
  
"In that case, Pycelle," Joffrey turned towards the deceptively frail man, "Write to Lord Tyrell. We will attempt to appeal to both his sense of duty and his ambition. First, duty. Tell him that the Faith has declared this a holy war against heathen gods. The tree Gods of the North, the Drowned God of the Ironborn, as well as the Red God Stannis has taken to following. As a stick, tell him that if refuses, then he runs the risk of being excommunicated by the Faith."  
  
Several eyes turned towards the High Septon to see if he would object. When he didn't, they turned back towards the king who continued, "As a carrot, as of this moment, I'm setting aside my betrothal to Sansa Stark. Instead offer my hand to his daughter, Margaery Tyrell, as well as the position of Master-of-Laws to Lord Tyrell himself.  
  
"Write a second letter to Lord Randyll Tarly, offering him the position of Master-at-Arms of the Iron Throne. The position has laid vacant since Lord Jamie has been captured, and given that we are at war, that can't stand. Tarly is one of the best commanders we have available. We ought to use him."  
  
"Once you are done with the letters bring them here. I'll sign them personally. I'm sure the High Septon wouldn't mind cosigning them, to demonstrate the support the Faith holds for my reign?"  
  
"I'd be honored to help, your grace." The High Septon smiled kindly. Despite that, it was clear that he was in deep thought.  
  
"If they choose to help, where shall we tell them to head?" Baelish asked, "Stannis is in the Stormlands besieging Storm's End, Stark is in the Westerlands, and the capital lies open. Even if Stark stays in the Westerlands for the next few moons turn, this still leaves the issue of what Stannis will do. He has enough ships to carry his entire army directly towards King's Landing, does he not? If we order them to head towards the Stormlands and Stannis attacks here, then the city may fall. If we order them to come here, then we allow Stannis to solidify his position. If we delay too long, the Stark boy may bear down on us from the West, while Stannis marches on us from the South."  
  
Varys picked up from here, "Not to mention the strain hosting the Tyrell army will place on the city. We have little enough food as it is. Can we support them as well?"  
  
Then Varys went ahead with his suggestion, "Courtney Penrose has sent a letter to various kings, offering to declare for whichever one relieves the siege of Storm's End. My suggestion is we order the Reach army to march on Storm's End and relieve the siege. They'll take control of the castle on the behalf of the King. From there, we'll have the greatest castle of the Stormlands as a base from which to operate, and we'll have undermined Stannis's legitimacy."  
  
The council devolved into relative chaos, as all the council members had their own opinion on what the Tyrells ought to do. Ultimately, Joffrey was king, and his word was law.  
  
"I hear you, Lord Varys. Storm's End is the castle of my ancestor, and believe me, the decision to abandon it doesn't come easily. That said, it is a castle almost as far from King's Landing as Casterly Rock is. What does holding it accomplish? Can I use it as a naval base for the non-existent navy at my command? Can I use it in order to store supplies for my soldiers? No.  
  
"Order the Tyrells to rally towards King's Landing. Ask them to bring food to alleviate starvation.  
  
"In the interim, the High Septon will be declaring a holy fast during the day to ensure our food supplies last longer. The explanation we'll be giving is that the fast is to regain the favor of the Gods. Every night, the fast is to be broken with a minor public feast." At the looks he was getting, Joffrey explained, "A single large meal is a lot easier to provide than three decent meals a day. The chance for merriment and dancing will also help keep the people content and raise morale."  
  
It was the same strategy used by the church officials during the First Crusade. During the siege of Antioch, things hadn't been going great for the Christians. Earthquakes and aurora's had convinced many crusaders that they had displeased God. Coupled with the onset of starvation as food ran out, the siege hadn't been going well. As a solution, the church ordered the crusaders fast in order to 'regain the favor of God.' In truth it was a blatant attempt to frame the fact that they didn't have any food and couldn't afford to feed the army in the first in a slightly better light.  
  
Regardless, it had worked then. Joffrey hoped it would work now.  
  
After a second, Joffrey continued with orders for the rest of his small council, "Until the time the Tyrells reach us, we will be raising a new army in the crownlands. With that, let us discuss the details of how, as well as set up plans and contingencies for each of the likely scenario's that are going to be coming up in this war."  
  
It was a very long meeting, in which Joffrey startled his council multiple times by not being a blithering imbecile.  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
  
An army in any era was more than just the soldiers. Oftentimes the battle was decided not when the sword was sheathed, but before the swords were drawn.  
  
An army marched on its stomach. Soldiers need to be fed.  
  
In the modern era that Joffrey remembered, food contractors would be responsible for it. The United States government would shop around for a good price, hire a company, who would deliver the food to them in the quantity ordered. Afterwards, the food would be brought to the army by railways or trucks.  
  
Given the era he was in, food contractors didn't exist, and neither did railways and trucks. The fastest anything could move was by horse, though donkey and oxen were better at carrying large amounts of resources, even though they were slower. This freed the horses to carry soldiers.  
  
How much food had to be carried? A single Roman legion consisted of 4,800 soldiers, between 600 and 1,200 pack mules, and 1,200 slaves to carry supplies. In order to feed the legion for a single day, the army required 18,000 pounds of grain, 12,000 gallons of water, and 40,000 pounds of fodder.  
  
Joffrey's army would be far larger than that. At his height, Joffrey intended to have multiple corps. Once the war was over, he would have complete control over the entirety of the continent and all the resources within. Supporting an army would be much easier then, but for the moment, he would have to make do with what he had.  
  
Feeding an army wasn't easy. In order to accomplish it, most generals divided the procurement of food into multiple phases.  
  
Firstly, at the outset, most soldiers would be carrying some supplies with them. On average, this was enough to keep them fed for a single week. The baggage train that came with them carried an additional three to four weeks of supply. This granted the general some flexibility and allowed them to do things like declare a 'Forced March' where the army would march without stopping to rest or forage.  
  
Secondly, the army could gather supplies as they went through foraging, requisitioning, and pillaging supplies. Foraging is hunting, requisitioning is ordering peasants to give up food, and pillaging is killing enemy peasants and stealing their food.  
  
Finally, they could establish supply lines.  
  
The first part of the supply line was the strategic base of supply. This was where your food was coming from. In the case of Joffrey's army, he was depending heavily on the pending alliance with the Reach to provide food. As far as the Crownlands went, the two most fertile spots were the Sow's Horn further north, and King's Landing itself.  
  
Sow's Horn was right on the border of the Riverlands, Stark territory, so he wasn't sure how long he would have control of it. To be safe, he had sent a missive to the loyalist forces stationed there to divert as much food as possible from the province to the capital. The shipment should arrive in a weeks' time, given that the province was right on top of the King's Road.  
  
When they inevitably lost control of Sow's Horn, he would be stuck with only King's Landing itself and the Reach to provide food for his armies.  
  
The next segment of his supply line was his operational base, in this case King's Landing itself. It was the point at which his food sources would be massed and accounted for before being sent onwards to the army.  
  
The final segment would be the tactical base of operations. It was generally located right alongside the army, a couple days march away at most. It was from there that the army got its food. As the army advanced, the old tactical bases were converted to supply depots, loosely garrisoned by soldiers left behind.  
  
The supply depots would form a 'line' between the operational base and the tactical base, hence where the term supply line comes from.  
  
The battle was decided not when the sword was sheathed, but when the sword was drawn. The army that had more food could support more soldiers and maintain a higher morale than an army of starving peasants, something that could easily be leveraged into a victory.  
  
Other factors that could influence the tide of battle included armor, quality of weaponry, skill of the individual soldiers, training in formation, quality of the generals, and so forth.  
  
In neither of his lives had Joffrey been a great warrior. In one, he was a twelve-year-old boy, while in the other, he lived in an era where the sword and spear were obsolete. In neither of his lives had Joffrey been a great general. In one, he was a twelve-year-old boy, while in the other, the closest he had gone to a battlefield was a documentary on the Napoleonic wars.  
  
In one of his lives, however, Joffrey was a decent accountant. He had earned his bachelor's degree after four years of hard work, and he retained a lot of his skills.  
  
Joffrey may not be able to command a battle. He may not understand why heavy cavalry went in front of the army, while light cavalry went on the flanks. He may not know where the archers should be placed, and when they should be firing.  
  
What he did know was that supplies were an asset, so when you bought supplies for cash, you had to credit supplies while debiting cash. What he did know was how to record adjusting entries for loans taken from the Iron Bank. What he did know was the importance of an economy to sustaining an army.  
  
Joffrey couldn't match Robb Stark or Stannis Baratheon as a general, and he wouldn't try. He would however beat them both as a King.  
  
He would turn his victory into a foregone conclusion. By the time his army graced the field, it would be led by men like Tywin Lannister and Randyll Tarly, it would be armored better than either of its counterparts, better trained and disciplined, with robust supply lines feeding and sustaining it.  
  
Victory would be his.


	3. Chapter 3

“I can see that my presence makes you nervous Master Mott,” Joffrey fixed Tobho Mott with a cold stare, one that seemed out of place on the face of a twelve-year-old boy, “So let me put your mind to ease. I am not here to investigate you, nor were you implicated for anything related to treason. Let me ask you again, where do you get your steel from?”  
  
This time Mott stopped his simpering. From his position on bended knees, Mott answered, “I make the steel myself, your grace. The recipe is my own, a family recipe you see, brought from-”  
  
Joffrey cut him off with a raised hand. He was scared, Joffrey could tell, that he would be made to give up his recipe. Swiftly, Joffrey reassured him, “I’m not interested in your recipe.” He could see Mott’s shoulders sag in relief momentarily before tensing up again as he wondered what else Joffrey might be interested in.  
  
Charitably, Joffrey threw Mott a bone. “We are at war, I’m sure you’ve noticed. I need to rearm and equip a levy numbering 14,000 soldiers and need to find the steel to do it. Do you imagine that there is enough steel in the city to manage that?”  
  
Mott considered that for a moment, before replying “It depends, your grace, on what you intend to arm them with.”  
  
“Explain.”  
  
Mott made to rise and head right before hesitating. Instead, he looked imploringly at Joffrey, “May I?”  
  
“Yes, yes, get on with it,” Joffrey waved him onwards impatiently.  
  
Rising to his feet, Mott moved to grab a spear. Turning, he presented the weapon to the King, saying “Your grace, this is a spear. The body,” Mott turned it so that Joffrey could look at the polished surface, “is made of wood. The only part of it that is made of metal is the head of the spear,” he flipped it over once more, getting Joffrey’s guards to bristle nervously.  
  
Both Joffrey and Mott ignored them as Mott continued his explanation, “Because only the head of the spear requires metal, it is far easier to produce them in large quantities and it’ll make arming your army much cheaper.”  
  
Joffrey gestured for the weapon, which Mott handed over quickly. As Joffrey tested the blade out, thrusting it into empty air, he asked Mott, “And how effective are they on the battlefield?”  
  
He felt stupid for asking the question. The weapon had been one of the earliest invented by humanity and had persisted until now. Surely, they wouldn’t have endured for so long if they weren’t effective?  
  
It was all the more surprising when instead of launching into the virtues of the spear-like Joffrey was expecting, Mott hesitated for a second before replying, “It depends.”  
  
“Explain.”  
  
“The spear is colloquially known as ‘The King of the Battlefield’ due to how common it is. The reason it’s so common though is because it is extremely simple to use. Most soldiers that are going to be fighting in your army are going to be levied, not knights. Most of them have never held a sword before, and don’t know how to fight. For those soldiers, a spear is an obvious choice. You hold it, point it in the direction of the enemy and stab.  
  
“When it comes to fighting other peasants, that is normally enough. The weakness of the spear is-” here he gestured for Joffrey to return his weapon. Joffrey did, watching Mott with rapt interest, “- that once you thrust and miss before you can attack again, you have to bring the blade back and return to starting position.  
  
“Most soldiers can’t afford mail or plate. They’re armored with cheap, easily produced, hardened leather. In those cases, there are enough vulnerabilities that the soldier can’t just charge down the spearman, and any decent spearman would have the advantage.  
  
“The problem emerges when dealing with heavily armored opponents, like knights. Spears accomplish very little because so few vulnerabilities exist. The knight could afford to close the distance, to the point where he’s behind the metal point of the spear. At that point, a spearman is a dead man.”  
  
As the lecture ended, Joffrey gave Mott a slow clap, bringing the blacksmith out of the near trance-like state he had fallen into. Coloring at the realization that he had just lectured the King of the Seven Kingdoms, Mott tried to apologize.  
  
Joffrey waved him off, “No, no, that was very informative. So, would you say that swords are better?”  
  
Determined to keep it short this time, Mott replied “It’s not a matter of better, your grace. It’s a matter of the soldiers and what sort of training and equipment they have.  
  
“For career soldiers like sellswords? The sword can kill more easily than the spear. It has an easier time dealing with heavily armored opponents because it is a lot easier to maneuver, making it easier to attack weak points like the armpits. Career soldiers are also a lot more likely to have heavy armor of their own, which means that they can close the range a lot easier with, for instance, spearman.  
  
“In other words, a well-trained, well-armored swordsman beats a well-trained, well-armored spearman. If the soldier isn’t well-trained or well-armored, the spear has the advantage. I suppose you could say that spear is the weapon of choice for a peasant dealing with other peasants.”  
  
Joffrey nodded seriously, taking a second to contemplate. If he wanted something resembling a standing army, swords would be the weapon of choice, then. “I see. Nevertheless, we’ve gotten off track. Do we have enough weapons and armor to arm an army of 14,000?”  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
  
As it turned out, the answer was kind of. Mott didn’t have solid numbers, and given that this was the medieval era, no one did, but he could tell Joffrey where he got his steel from. The answer was the Vale.  
  
There were a total of three regions in Westeros with an abundance of metal; The North, The Vale, and The Westerlands.  
  
One of those regions, the North, was at war with Joffrey. They weren’t shipping metal for weapons to the region they were at war with.  
  
The next region, the Vale, was a bit more complicated. Technically, the Vale was neutral and as such, they were free to do business with whomever they pleased, but more practically, they were completely cut off from Joffrey’s forces.  
  
The Vale shared a land border with the Trident on their western front, the Trident which was sworn to the Starks. Any shipment moving by land was liable to be cut off by Northern forces. This left only travel by sea as an option, but with the Royal Navy serving Stannis, those were under danger of being halted by either pirates or forces under the command of Stannis.  
  
Altogether, getting metal from the Vale was a very expensive and lengthy endeavor.  
  
The final region that supplied metal to the Crownlands were the Westerlands, which was sworn to Joffrey’s grandfather and most loyal supporter, Tywin Lannister. The region shared a border with the Crownlands, and in the earlier parts of the war, had supplied the city with plenty of iron to be smelted into steel.  
  
Unfortunately, with the Stark boy running about the Westerlands, shipments had been postponed for the time being.  
  
In other words, the Joffrey had a very real bottleneck for how many weapons he could produce.  
  
Upon realizing this, he had declared a state of emergency and ordered that the blacksmiths all suspend production, much to their unhappiness. Afterward, he ordered them to weigh out how much metal they currently had for production.  
  
Next Joffrey had to account for the weapons the Royal Army already had access to. It occurred to him that he didn’t need to make all his armaments from scratch. The City Watch armory had some weapons that he could use, as did the Royal Armory.  
  
It took a week for the entirety of the numbers to come in.  
  
Firstly, the weapons that they already had access to. Between the armories, the army had two-thousand-fifty-eight unused swords, four-hundred-sixty-six pikes, three-thousand-ninety-seven spears, and four-hundred-seventy-two war hammers, for a variety pack of weapons that amounted to enough arms for six-thousand-ninety-three soldiers.  
  
The variety of the army was a weakness, however.  
  
Pikes were longer than spears, so pikemen had to fight in formation, something that required extensive training. Once trained, they were a decent counter to enemy cavalry, especially light cavalry. Similarly, the sword was also a very effective weapon, just not in the hands of the ill-trained.  
  
By contrast, the spearmen and Warhammer users required a lot less training to be effective.  
  
Over the previous week, roughly five-thousand soldiers had trickled in, less than half of the stated goal of fourteen-thousand. Regardless, it may have been a blessing in disguise. For the time being, Joffrey had enough weapons for everyone, something that was likely to change within a week.  
  
To that end, Joffrey turned to the reports of the resources he had. Between the two-hundred blacksmiths in the city, they had a total of roughly four-thousand pounds of steel and roughly fifteen thousand pounds of iron ore with which to make more steel. The conversion ratio of iron to steel was 1.5 pounds of iron for a single pound of steel.  
  
That amounted to roughly ten-thousand pounds of steel that could be produced in the city, bringing the total up to fourteen-thousand pounds of steel.  
  
If Joffrey insisted they produce swords and only swords, then with that amount of steel, only five-thousand-six-hundred swords could be produced, bringing their weapon total up to eleven-thousand-six-hundred-ninety-three.  
  
This would leave over 2,000 soldiers unarmed and ensure that the entirety of his armor was devoid of metal armor. As a matter of practicality, Joffrey couldn’t afford to have the entirety of his army armed with swords.  
  
Instead, he determined what should be produced after a talk with Ser Jacelyn Bywater, known commonly as ‘The Ironhand.’ After Janos Slynt was dismissed by Tyrion, Ser Jacelyn had been appointed the Commander of the Gold Cloaks. He was a competent, honest man.  
  
So honest that he didn’t even attempt to cushion the bad news.  
  
“We can’t afford to train that many people,” Jacelyn told him.  
  
Joffrey stared at him aghast, “Well why not?”  
  
“The Targaryen’s never imagined that their dragons would die out,” Jacelyn explained, “So they never thought that they would need armies of men. They spent a lot more time building accessories for their dragons, like the Dragon Pit, than they did on building training grounds. Even the gold cloaks are more of a policing force than an army, albeit a very well-equipped one.  
  
“At the moment, we have four training fields. The largest of these four could train roughly five-hundred men at a time, while the smallest can train less than a hundred. Three-thousand men, we could handle. Training an entire army of peasants to use swords from scratch? Not likely.”  
  
“Can’t we expand the training fields?”  
  
“Not without closing down the fields that are being worked on. That may allow us to train the more soldiers in the future, but for now, it’ll only make the situation worse.”  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Taking all the details into account, Joffrey had eventually ordered the following items to be produced.  
  
First, arming swords. After having verified that three-thousand men could be trained to use swords, Joffrey decided to maximize the number of swordsmen he could have, ordering a total of nine-hundred-forty-two swords, bringing the overall number up to three-thousand. The total cost of steel was 2,355 pounds, leading to a remainder of 11,645 pounds of steel remaining.  
  
The remaining soldiers were to be armed with spears. They would have to make do with no training. A total order of 6,965 spears was placed. For every spear only the tip was made of metal, meaning that each one took less than half a pound to produce. Altogether, they estimated the spears would take up 3,482 pounds of steel, leaving a mere 8,163 pounds left.  
  
Joffrey prioritized the making of weapons over armor for the blacksmiths because they were running on limited time. It was only so long before an enemy army showed up and tried to take the capital, after all.  
  
In the interim, hardened leather armor could be produced by tanners. The leather armor wasn’t preferred, but Joffrey would use it if he had to.  
  
It took a blacksmith about a week to produce a dozen decent swords and far less than that to produce a spear point. The estimate given to him said that all his weapons should be ready in roughly two weeks.  
  
The rest of the time and material the blacksmiths had available would be used to produce armor. A single order of plate armor would cost about thirty-five pounds. With the amount of steel left to them, they could produce enough armor for 233 soldiers.  
  
Joffrey had to scrap that plan. After all the trouble he had gone through to train his swordsmen, he at the very least wanted to make sure the three-thousand swordsmen were decently protected.  
  
The problem was that he didn’t have the metal for it. With only slightly more than eight-thousand pounds left, he couldn’t produce much. A knight’s helm alone, for instance, weighed five pounds. With the amount of metal, he had left, if he produced only helmets for his soldiers, he could afford 1625 helmets.  
  
Keep in mind that this leaves the body bare.  
  
Eventually, Joffrey was forced to accept he wouldn’t be getting decent armor for his troops regardless of what he did and how he approached the situation, so as a compromise he stuck to leather armor and gambeson for the body while ordering the helmets for his swordsmen.  
  
All this cost him a pretty penny, but the treasury was overflowing with borrowed gold from the Lannisters, the Iron Bank, and the Faith. This would be further supplemented by gold he would gain from Margaery’s dowry.  
  
For the time being, he wasn’t concerned about cash. It was the supply source that was an issue. Unless he could secure a source of iron, his armies were not long for this world.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
  
“Do the Stormlands have iron mines?”  
  
“I’m afraid I’m not sure, your grace. My little birds tell me plenty of secrets, but not much in the way of geography. Perhaps your uncle would be a better source of information?”  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
  
“Do the Stormlands have iron mines?”  
  
“I would imagine so,” Tyrion regarded Joffrey suspiciously, “They had some of the best heavy foot before the conquest. I don’t see how that would be possible without a source of iron.”  
  
“Where?”  
  
“I wouldn’t know. We imps are rather dull creatures, you see. Why don’t you ask Pycelle? I’m sure the esteemed Grand Maester would know.”  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
  
“Do the Stormlands have iron mines?” Joffrey asked for a third time, not expecting much.  
  
To his surprise, Pycelle answered, “They do, your grace.”  
  
Opening and closing his jaws a few times as though to warm it up and narrowing his eyes as though seeing an invisible map, Pycelle answered, “If you head east from Fellwood, west of Storm’s End, there is a province by the name of Galemont.”  
  
Moving a single finger up and placing it on thin air as though he were pointing at a spot on the map, Pycelle slowly moved the finger south. As he did so, he listed off names, “Galemont. Grandview. Fawntown. Blackhaven. There is a mountain range that extends through those four provinces that have iron deposits littered throughout.”  
  
Joffrey just barely repressed a grimace. The Bronze Gate, the Parchments, and Storm’s End were all along the King’s Road, which would make moving troops along the provinces quick.  
  
His initial strategy was to use King’s Landing as an operational base. From King’s Landing his army would move along the King’s Road to Chyttering Brook, an allied province, using it as a tactical base. From Chyttering Brook, they would move to capture the castles of Bronze Gate and later, the Parchments.  
  
The reason that these castles had to be captured instead of being ignored is that each captured castle would serve as a supply depot for the advancing army as it set up for the siege of Storm’s End.  
  
Eventually, the supply chain would begin in the Reach, his strategic base for food. It would travel along the Rose Road until it reached King’s Landing, his operational base for food and weapons. The two resources would be shipped together down towards Chyttering Brook, before moving to the Bronze Gate, and the Parchments, before reaching the besieging army at Storm’s End.  
  
The short distance between castles would ensure that there was little time to ambush the supply caravans. If Joffrey wanted to be very safe, he could also move reinforcements of two-hundred soldiers with the supply caravan. While they were heading down to join the army, they could act as an escort to deter bandits.  
  
This new information complicated that plan, however. To start, none of the provinces that Pycelle mentioned were located on a road network. Getting troops to the counties would be a nightmare. After the troops got there, they would have to be fed.  
  
The counties themselves were mountains, making scavenging for food difficult. Pillaging wasn’t an option either, given how barren most of them would be. Making matters even worse, the terrain made it easy to ambush invading forces.  
  
Joffrey might be able to conquer them, but a victory at the asking price might ruin him.  
  
The other options were to not invade them. With any luck, Tywin would be able to deal with the Stark’s in the Westerlands. Once the land had been reopened to the Lannister forces, that should deal with his iron problems.  
  
The final option would be to negotiate. Haltingly, Joffrey asked, “Pycelle, what religion are the lords of Galemont, and how do they feel about Stannis?”


	4. Chapter 4

“You’ve changed.”  
  
“Have I, mother?” Joffrey asked, his tone radiating disinterest as he poured two cups of wine. Picking one up, Joffrey handed it to the seated dowager Queen.  
  
“You have. You’re more…” Cersei’s voice trailed off as she struggled to come up with the right words. Nothing negative certainly. Even the Queen needs to take care when speaking to a King, especially one with Joffrey’s temperament.  
  
Joffrey let her off the hook. She was his most loyal supporter by far and the only one who followed him out of love. Joffrey glanced around for a second, a small smile creeping to his face. “It was in this room, wasn’t it?”  
  
Cersei looked confused for a second even though she covered it up well. Putting a smile on her face she leaned forward and asked, “What was love?”  
  
“I recognize those green pillars,” Joffrey stated, his eyes scanning the room. The room that Cersei and Joffrey were meeting in was a wide, open expanse, meant to allow the noble within a chance to enjoy natural light and fresh air.  
  
Three windows, large enough so that two people could stare out one simultaneously adorned the outer wall. The wall itself was designed as a semi-circle that jutted out towards the sea. The windows had vines and plants tastefully growing on the sides and were divided down the center by easily recognizable green pillars.  
  
Seeing that Cersei was still confused, Joffrey explained, “When I had been bitten by that horrid wolf, the one that the stupid Stark whore owned, my bandages needed to be changed regularly. I remember you doing it in this room once. Do you remember what we talked about?”  
  
Cersei thought back to that day, “Everyone who isn’t us is the enemy.”  
  
This drew a laugh out of Joffrey, the first since he had arrived in this new world. “That is the one mother,” he said, a grin still playing on his lips, “But the part I’m thinking of came a bit before that.”  
  
“It has been a while,” Cersei said, “So much has happened since then.”  
  
Joffrey assumed that this was noble-speak for ‘remind me.’ Easily, Joffrey obliged.  
  
Rolling his right sleeve up, Joffrey exposed the scars on his hand. Jagged bite marks, a pale white against his skins. Holding the arm up, Joffrey smiled sardonically “The price for battling a dire wolf unarmed. You see, I had seduced a virgin noblewoman, no, five-virgin noblewomen, and had led them to the riverbank to make love to them.  
  
“Unfortunately, I had thought I would be using a different sword there and left my weapon behind. To our collective shock and horror, we had stumbled upon a wild animal. Not just any animal, but a full-grown dire wolf, towering over most men at six feet.  
  
“I gained this scar while defending the maidens from the hungry jaws of the beast, before strangling it with my bare hands.”  
  
Cersei thought for a minute, “You are my darling little boy, and the world will be exactly as you say it is. I’d make up a story a bit less ridiculous than that though.”  
  
Joffrey obliged her. “Alright, then let me try again. A different story though. Hearing the same one over and over gets dull after a while, no matter how it’s worded. Allow me to tell you the story of _The War of Five Kings.”_  
  
Joffrey paused here, thinking over his words for a second. Eventually, he spoke, his tone switching from light-hearted and grandstanding to deadly serious, “I intend to make the Starks and Tully’s accept blame for the war.”  
  
“Do you now? And what does that mean?” Cersei asked, arching one of her golden brows.  
  
Instead of answering the question, Joffrey stared out into the distance. When he spoke, it was on something unrelated. “The monarchy of Westeros is far too weak and far too poor. This was, perhaps, the result of the greatest of Aegon the Conqueror's foolishness.”  
  
“Foolishness?” Cersei asked, “I recall that you admired them. ‘Say what you want about the Targaryen’s but they were conquerors.’ I believe it was. And Aegon was the greatest of them-”  
  
Joffrey cut Cersei off by making a disgusted sound, “Was Aegon Targaryen a warrior? How many knights did he cut down with Blackfyre while sitting atop his dragon? Was Aegon Targaryen a great general? No. It was my ancestor, Orys Baratheon, who led his armies on the field of battle. Given Aegon’s track record, I wouldn’t be surprised if Orys had to pleasure the incompetent fucks sister-wives too.”  
  
Cersei was taken aback by the sheer vehemence of Joffrey’s disdain. Not knowing what to say and seeing Joffrey had more to say, she stayed quiet.  
  
Eventually, Joffrey started speaking again, “Aegon the First was a king nearly as incompetent as Aegon the Fourth; he just happened to have enough dragons to mask his incompetence. It was Visenya who founded the Kingsguard, the very first institution of the Iron Throne. It wasn’t until the fourth Targaryen king that the road network was started.  
  
“Perhaps then, we shouldn’t be surprised that Aegon’s incompetence spread to his design of the Seven Kingdoms and the Crownlands.”  
  
At with that, they had gotten to the heart of the matter. Joffrey was on a roll now. “Granted, he had thought to take lands from the Kingdom of the Stormlands and the Trident to form a new Crownland for the monarchy; something more intelligent than I had expected of him, but the result was a Crownland smaller and poorer than any of the vassal kingdoms-”  
  
Now it was Cersei’s turn to cut her son off, “A good king doesn’t fight his foes alone. He has his servants to fight for him.”  
  
Joffrey’s laugh was a bitter, sardonic thing that sent chills up Cersei’s spine. “Is that right? Aerys Targaryen will be delighted to hear.”  
  
“Aerys was mad,” Cersei replied, “You can’t-”  
  
“Aerys was king,” Joffrey cut in, voice hoarse and emerald eyes glittering, “He was a king like I am a king. And when his vassals grew discontent, they overthrew him. They overthrew him.” There was a certain feeling of exhaustion in Joffrey’s voice when he asked, “What is to stop them from doing the same to me?”  
  
Cersei rose to her feet. Calmly, she made her way over to her son and gently took his face into her hand. Guiding his chin up so that their eyes met, she spoke. “Listen to me. Aerys was mad. He was one of the worst kings Westeros has seen, and you? You shall be one of its greatest, beloved far and wide.”  
  
Her eyes were warm, motherly, in a way Joffrey didn’t think Cersei could have ever been. _She loves her children_ , he dimly recalled.  
  
Joffrey took a fortifying breath. For a second, he leaned into Cersei's loving caress, and then the moment was over. He backed away, straightening his posture as he did so. All the fears of the past few minutes dissolved like morning mist. Doing his best to recapture the pride, the haughtiness, that came so easily to this body, he placed another smile onto his face.  
  
“You’re right, I will be. That doesn’t change the fact that the servants of the Iron Throne had the strength to overthrow their kings once, and if so needed, they could do so again. I can only speak for myself, not for my descendants. I can no more control the fruits of my loin than Jahaerys the Wise could control Aerys the Mad. If my dynasty is going to endure, the crown needs to change.”  
  
“Alright,” Cersei said. There was a tone of skepticism in her voice, but Joffrey didn’t begrudge her for it. “How would you go about changing it. Does this have to do with your idea for a standing army?”  
  
“In part,” Joffrey admitted, carelessly running a hand through his hair, “Once the war is over, I intend to force the North to sign a rather unequal treaty.”  
  
"And what would be in this treaty?”  
  
“Firstly, the acceptance of blame. I want the North to accept all blame for the war and responsibility for the damages it caused. As part of their punishment for rebelling, I intend on making them pay indemnities equaling that of the damages caused by war.”  
  
“That would ruin the North,” Cersei said, looking shocked, “They can’t afford to pay that much.”  
  
Joffrey shrugged at that. “That’s too bad for them, now isn’t it? If they can’t afford to pay in gold, then we’ll have to take the raw materials produced by their mines as payment. And if it ruins them financially, all the better. It’ll make it harder for them to rebel in the future.”  
  
“And how do you plan on keeping them from rebelling again?” Cersei asked.  
  
“This was only part of the treaty.” Joffrey said, starting to smile once more at his brilliance, “There are four in total. The second part is the demilitarization of the Neck and having the lands be sworn to the crown directly. The third is the destruction of Moat Cailin. A fourth is a hard limit on the number of household knights and soldiers the North can afford to employ.”  
  
“You want to cripple the North,” Cersei breathed out in realization.  
  
Joffrey nodded looking very pleased. A few moments of silence filled the air before Joffrey spoke once more, “At the end of the war, Stannis will have been defeated, meaning the Stormlands will be needing a new Lord Paramount, as will the Riverlands once I’ve taken the title from the traitor Tully’s, and the North from the Stark’s.  
  
“I am a descendant of House Durrandon through my father, Robert Baratheon. As their descendant, I intend to claim their name as my own, as well as their castle. From the day that Stannis lies defeated, until the end of time, the Crown Prince of my kingdom is to be named the Prince of Storm’s End and Lord Paramount of the Stormlands, granting total control of one of the Seven Kingdoms to the Crown.  
  
“I intend to take control of the geographical center of Westeros for myself, that being the Riverlands. At the very center of the Riverlands lies the greatest castle in the Seven Kingdoms.”  
  
“Harrenhal,” Cersei realized, less a question and more a statement.  
  
Nonetheless, Joffrey nodded. “Harrenhal. I don’t intend to keep the name though. I have no intention of naming my capital after an Ironborn king. ‘God’s Crown,’ is a much better name, don’t you think?”  
  
“Do you think the river lords will accept this?” Cersei asked seriously. “You’ve just killed their friends and family, deposed their liege lords, and humiliated them-”  
  
“I have no intention of humiliating the _river lords_ ,” Joffrey stressed the title. “I intend on treating the lords differently based on descent. The house of first men descent like those of the North? They’re going to be getting the short end of the stick, I fear. The houses of Andal descent that worship the seven? Apart from House Tully, I intend on helping them back to their feet.  
  
“After all, the ‘Kingdom of New Andalos’ is a Kingdom built by the Andals for the Andals.”  
  
“More of your changes?” Cersei asked.  
  
“Most of my population is Andal,” Joffrey shrugged, “All of Westeros save for Dorne, which hates me for the fate of Elia Martell, the Iron Isles which are rebelling again, and the North, which is also rebelling.”  
  
Switching once more from careless to serious, Joffrey said “One day, Daenerys Targaryen is going to sail across the narrow sea, expecting to reclaim the Seven Kingdoms of the Iron Thrones. When she returns to face her doom, she will find a different kingdom, with a different capital, and a different ethos.  
  
“She will find herself in the Kingdom of New Andalos, where the capital is God’s Crown. She will come to King’s Landing, the city her ancestors built, and find the City of Dragon’s Fall instead, where mummer’s shows happen on every corner, celebrating the fall of House Targaryen.  
  
“On the Street of Silk, there will be a show lauding the bravery of the thousands who died storming the Dragon’s Pit, slaying the Targaryen dragons during the Dance. On the Street of Steel will be another, celebrating brave Ser Jamie’s valiant slaying of the monstrous King Aerys.  
  
“She will walk down the streets and have Andals spit upon her for having a different hair color than theirs. For having purple eyes. And she will know that she will never be welcome here; that this land will never be her home.”  
  
Joffrey stopped for a second to take a sip of his wine, the first since he had started speaking. Eventually, he lifted his head, though his eyes remained on the blood-red liquid. In a voice barely louder than a whisper, he spoke. “Some kings teach their subjects to build. Others teach them how to love. Me? I will teach Andalos how to hate.”


	5. Chapter 5

“It is time for the feast, but before we begin, let us all give thanks to the King for his generosity and renew our vows of fealty.”  
  
 _Spit on the King and his fucking generosity,_ Rory thought grumpily as his stomach rumbled, pain lancing through him. Gods, he was hungry. One meal a day, what sort of life was that?  
  
To his disgust, the people around him rose, placing one hand on their chest in the salute they had been taught by the priest. As he had for the previous week, Rory rose with them. He didn’t want to be the only left sitting.  
  
Together, the crowd spoke. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the Kingdom of New Andalos, and to the King for which it stands, one realm under the Gods, indivisible, with truth and justice for all.”  
  
A momentary rest followed before the priest made a gesture and with that, the audience was finally allowed to sit. Around them, servants bustled bringing out food and wine. A buxom blonde maid served him a cup of red wine, which Rory gulped down greedily, not stopping until the chalice was empty.  
  
He exhaled at the end of it, feeling slightly better with something in his stomach. As he waited for the food to be placed on his plate, a standard meal of bread, cheese, and a sliver of meat; he heard a song played in the distance.  
  
After listening to it for a second, Rory placed it easily. According to the priest, the song was their ‘National Anthem.’  
  
Personally, Rory wasn’t too sure what it was good for. A song wouldn’t kill Robb Stark or beat his invincible army, nor would it put food in his stomach.  
  
He would admit it was a very pretty song though. The first time he had heard it, he had even been impressed. Familiarity bred contempt, however, and after a week, Rory had started tuning it out. Instead, he focused on more important things, like the delicious meal in front of him.  
  
 _The sun on the meadow is summery warm.  
The stag in the forest runs free._  
  
Even while the song played, mealtime conversations carried on. It was to the songs credit that it managed to carry over the din of the lunching pavilion so that everyone could hear it.  
  
Another bite, another swallow. Rory suppressed a moan of delight. After so long, even a plain meal of bread and cheese seemed heavenly. A gulp of wine.  
  
 _But gather together to greet the storm.  
Tomorrow belongs to me._  
  
“-King’s opening the Kingswood for us to hunt in.”  
  
Suddenly Rory was startled out of his single-minded devotion to his meal. He couldn’t have possibly heard that correctly.  
  
He knew that voice. It was the voice of Marcus the Carpenter, a peasant like Rory himself. There was no way that he would be allowed to hunt in the Kingswood.  
  
 _The branch of the linden is leafy and  
Green,_  
  
Marcus turned to him in surprise. “You didn’t hear? The King has opened the Kingswood for peasants to hunt in for the next two months. Once the Tyrells get here with the food shipments, that’s all over, but until then, we’re allowed in.”  
  
 _The Rhine gives its gold to the sea.  
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen._  
  
Rory looked at him, stunned. Eventually, he came back to his senses. Smiling, he raised his nearly empty chalice. “To good King Joffrey, then.”  
  
 _Tomorrow belongs to me._  
  
Marcus copied his motion, “To good King Joffrey.”  
  
Clinking their cups, the two threw back their drinks. To Rory’s disappointment, his chalice ran empty by the end of the sip. Forlornly, his gaze drifted to Marcus’s cup. He still had some left.  
  
Marcus noticed his gaze as well. “Would you like some?”  
  
“Really?” Rory asked surprised.  
  
“Sure,” he said before transferring some of the precious liquid. When Rory thanked him, Marcus shrugged. “Think nothing of it, brother. The Gods smile on generosity. Soon the times of plenty will be here.”  
  
 _Now Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign  
Your children have waited to see_  
  
“The times of plenty?” Rory questioned. It would be rude to take Marcus’ drink and ignore him, wouldn’t it?  
  
“Yeah,” Marcus said agreeably, “Soon, the war will be won, and the First Men will all be dead. Then we won’t have any shortages of anything anymore.”  
  
Rory felt a chill run up his spine. Almost absently his eyes drifted to Marcus’ left arm.  
  
 _The morning will come  
When the world is mine_  
  
There was a strip of cloth tied around his bicep; half of it was red, the other half yellow. Emblazoned on the red was the golden lion of House Lannister, emblazoned on the yellow was the crowned stag of House Baratheon.  
  
Seen together, they represented the royal house of Durrandon-Lannister. In this context, they signified a loyalist; a zealot; a madman.  
  
They had been showing up in increasing numbers lately. All these cultists came from the same place, as far as Rory was aware. The Sept down by the Street of Steel, run by a particularly senile old priest.  
  
“Why?” Rory didn’t realize he was speaking until the words were already out of his mouth. It was too late to back out now, so when Marcus quirked his eyebrows, Rory plowed onwards. “I mean- surely you can’t mean-”  
  
 _Tomorrow belongs  
Tomorrow belongs_  
  
Abruptly, Marcus asked, “Do you remember what part of Westeros I’m from, brother?”  
  
Rory furrowed his brows. He didn’t, but he could guess. Blonde hair and blue eyes were most common … “The Vale?”  
  
Marcus nodded, smiling. “The Vale,” he confirmed.  
  
After a moment, he continued, “For six-thousands years the Andals have ruled the Vale. It was the very first Andal nation on this continent. But we did not always rule there. Before we reigned, another did. A group of savages known as the First Men.”  
  
Here, his eyes went cloudy, as though he were reminiscing memories of a time long gone, a time he could not have possibly been alive to remember. Marcus spoke, “At the Battle of Seven Stars, the forces of Artys Arryn crushed the First Men, driving them from their hovels and into the mountains.  
  
“Not happy to accept the will of the Gods, the First Men rebelled. And they lost. And they rebelled again, lost again, and kept rebelling,” Rory could hear the frustration of the Vale in Marcus’ voice as he ranted, “Again and again. And when the rebellions failed? They turned to pillage, looting and raping like fucking animals.  
  
“Till this day, the fucking parasites remain, leeching off the Vale, making off with our women and turning our children into slaves. Well, no more,” finally Marcus’ eyes calmed, almost deceptively so. In a placid voice, he spoke his final words, “Soon, the armies of the faithful will march north, and when they do, the savages will get what’s coming to them; be they in the North, the Riverlands, or the Vale.”  
  
 _Tomorrow belongs  
Tomorrow belongs to me_  
  
The song drifted off, but the message it had imparted stayed long after the last notes finished playing.  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
“I am glad to report that the news I have gotten is remarkably positive,” Varys said in his high effeminate voice, “For starters, the Tyrells have agreed to join the war. In exchange for a seat on the small council and having their daughter as your queen, of course.”  
  
Joffrey laughed sincerely at that, “Of course. I am a man of my word. Begin preparations for the wedding. The faster this alliance is sealed, the better.”  
  
“As has the Vale.”  
  
Joffrey paused. “As has the Vale, what?”  
  
Varys glanced down at his papers. With a frown, he said, “To say that they’ve joined us is a bit of an exaggeration. They’ve taken to slaughtering the mountain clans with gusto, however. Well most of them, at any rate.  
  
“Robert Arryn, the rightful Lord of the Vale, is unwell, mentally and physically. His mother, the regent of the Vale, is-” Varys hesitated, thinking of how to describe Lysa Arryn. Eventually, he settled on, “Equally unwell. In her paranoia, she refuses to allow the knights of the Vale out of the region.”  
  
“Hence the Vale’s neutrality in the early war. I know that Varys, what’s this about the Vale joining the war?”  
  
“The Vale Lords take three things seriously, your grace. Honor, chivalry, and religion. At the start of the war, honor kept them bound to Lady Arryn. Once the High Septon sent the command to mass for a Crusade, however, the region devolved into chaos as the Vale Lords highly held virtues contradicted one another.  
  
“On the one hand, honor dictates they obey the commands laid out by their liege; on the other, their religion dictates that they answer the call to arms issued by the High Septon. In the end, as far as I can tell, the Vale Lords have taken to doing what they please.  
  
“News is scarce from the heart of the Vale, my king, but my birds have taken to singing from the ports of Gulltown and Wickenden. The High Lord of Wickenden, Lord Robert Waxley, has a brother by the name of Waymer. With two sons of his own, his brother is not in line to inherit any lands, and so with the declaration of a crusade, Robert has decided to go get some.  
  
“In the Riverlands, there is only one family that still worships the Old Gods, and that is the Blackwoods, bannermen to Lord Edmure of House Tully, and by proxy, loyal to Robb Stark. Now, because the Blackwoods are at war with us, their lands are virtually undefended as their levies fight in the Westerlands.  
  
“Lord Robert Waxley has called upon his bannermen, the Ser’s of Ninestars, as well as the Lords of Stonyhead and Crab’s Shore, before marching on Blackwood Vale to claim the castle for his brother, who will be made the new lord of Blackwood.”  
  
Joffrey burst out laughing. “That’s wonderful news!”  
  
Varys smiled mysteriously, “Is it? Or is it a blatant power grab by a Lord who sees an opportunity to expand his authority? Is it truly wonderful that the Vale dissolves into chaos?”  
  
Seeing Joffrey begin to frown, Varys quickly backtracked. “Forgive me, your grace. I fear the stress of the war has been getting to me lately. It shan’t happen again.”  
  
Seeing the spider recant, Joffrey let him off the hook. “There is nothing to forgive, dear friend. What other news?”  
  
“The other news is from Gulltown. You see, thanks to Lord Robert’s illness, provisions had to be made in case he perishes. To that end, Harrold Arryn, a distant relation of Lord Robert’s, is the heir presumptive to the Vale.  
  
“My little birds sing of his ambitions, however. Harrold wants to Lord of the Vale, and he isn’t willing to wait for Lord Robert to expire on is own. There is a chance after all that Robert might survive long enough to sire a child of his own.  
  
“To that end, Harrold is making his play for power. The Vale has a long martial tradition entrenched in chivalry. Harrold intends to paint himself as a war hero, and through that, seize power forcefully if it becomes necessary.”  
  
“I see. Do you think he has the potential to pull it off?”  
  
“I only know what my birds tell me, my lord. I know that Gulltown and Witch Isle have answered the call. I can presume that Hardvale and Ironoaks have probably also rallied to Harrold. On the other hand, House Royce of Runestone and their vassals; House Dutton of Narrowshade and House Tollet of Grey Clenn have refused the call.  
  
“Outside of that, I can’t tell you how he’s being received in Central and Northern Vale. Without that, there is very little I can say about his odds.”  
  
Joffrey leaned back in his chair. Drumming his fingers a few times on the armrest of his chairs a few times, he eventually said “Find out Varys. Prioritize this over everything else. You’re dismissed.”  
  
With a bow, Varys exited the room. Joffrey waited until he had left to deflate like a popped balloon.  
  
When he had ordered the High Septon send ravens out to the Vale demanding them to crusade against the North, he was hoping that they were going to go North, not fuck about with the Mountain Clans. Their campaign would probably take as long, if not longer, than the War of the Five Kings, meaning that for the rest of the war, the Vale was likely to be a non-entity.  
  
The sole exception to this would be House Waxley, but even they weren’t as useful as they could have been. Wickenden was located on the wrong side of the Bloody Gate, and as such, a returning Stark army could sack it with impunity.  
  
As much as Joffrey appreciated Lord Waxley pressuring the Stark’s from the East, Joffrey had to wonder what he was thinking.  
  
Either way, it didn’t matter. The plan remained unchanged. Soon the Reach would be here. Soon their combined armies would bring Stannis low. Soon, victory would be his.


	6. Chapter 6

“The situation in Vale has gone from bad to worse, I fear.” For all the world, Varys looked regretful as he spoke those words.  
  
“Report,” Joffrey commanded as the rest of the small council listened with rapt attention.  
  
“As I am sure that most of you are aware, the High Septons message has been greeted with a mixed reception from the Lords of the Vale. For the most part, they have divided into two coalitions, one declaring for Harrold Arryn, while the other holds to Robert Arryn.  
  
“When we had last spoken, my little birds sang to me a song far less bitter than the symphony this has turned into. Originally, the battle between the two falcons was supposed to be years away. This… crusade was supposed to be Lord Harrold’s time to shore up support so that he could eventually make a move for the Lord Paramountcy.”  
  
“Given that we are sitting here, discussing this, I am assuming that didn’t happen,” a smirking Lord Baelish commented idly.  
  
“Does the idea of Andal blood being spilled amuse you, Bravosi?” Joffrey asked, narrowing his eyes. Hearing their monarch’s tone, the guards standing behind Joffrey placed their hands on their swords, ready to draw and strike Baelish down if his response displeased the king.  
  
Both guards were dressed in the gold ensemble of the city watch, though Joffrey modified it. He had added a piece of cloth, to be tied around the biceps of every man in the city watch, bearing the royal sigil.  
  
It was a sign of loyalty when worn by peasants, but for men who served in either the government or the military, it was now a mandatory part of their uniform. Refusing to wear it would have them stripped of rank.  
  
These two men were handpicked by Joffrey himself. He had been recommended them by Septon Animar who ran the Sept down by the Street of Steel. While not the largest or most influential septry in the capital, it boasted the unique boon of being run by a Septon who came from the Vale, one who wholeheartedly believe in Joffrey’s spiel about Andal-Supremacy.  
  
Characteristically, it made its way into the Animar’s sermons, which resulted in the idea spreading from that focal point.  
  
When Joffrey had heard of Animar, he had gone on to set up a system where whenever Animar found someone particularly receptive to his teachings, he wrote down their names and sent them on to Joffrey. Joffrey then proceeded to seed those individuals through his government to radicalize his administration.  
  
Upon realizing that there were tangible benefits to being a devout loyalist, more and more peasants had taken to wearing his symbol; irrespective of whether they believed in his stance or just wanted the associated benefits.  
  
Dead silence filled the chambers as all the council members held their breaths as they waited for Baelish’s reply.  
  
The smirk disintegrated from his face faster than a snowball in a Dornish Summer. Still unbearably composed, Baelish began, “My king, I would never celebrate at the death of your faithful subjects. I have never been less than loyal to you, have I? Was it not I who held a knife to the traitor Stark’s throat when he had come to steal your throne? Was it not I-”  
  
Joffrey cut Baelish off, relaxing his face into a smile. “Never fear old friend, I was only teasing you. Breaking the tension. Things get so unbearably tense around here, don’t they?” Turning back to Varys, he commanded the master of whisper to continue.  
  
No one in the room missed that the guards, both of whom had the Durrandon-Lannister sigil tied around their biceps, failed to remove their hands from their blades. Neither did they miss that the guards shifted their gaze from the Lyseni Varys to the third generation Bravosi Baelish and back again.  
  
Tenser than he would otherwise be, Varys continued with his intelligence briefing “The civil war that the Vale is currently engaged in began with a minor dispute between House Royce and House Grafton.  
  
“You see, during your father’s war against Mad King Aerys, House Grafton made the mistake of supporting the Targaryens while all his neighbors supported King Robert. It was a gamble. They were hoping that if the dragons won, then they would gain land and influence at the expense of their neighbors.  
  
“It didn’t work. The Targaryens lost, and House Grafton lost much with it. They were allowed to keep their lands, but they lost their principal bannermen, House Shett, and with them, the county of Gulltower. They weren’t happy with that.  
  
“With the start of this crusade, they saw an opportunity to regain what they had lost. Their justification of this is that the Royce’s of Runestone are the descendants of Robar Royce, the last First Man King of the Vale, and as such, they aren’t properly Andal.”  
  
The High Septon interrupted this with a scoff. “What nonsense,” he muttered, “House Royce has been Andal for the last six millennia.”  
  
To this, Varys answered carefully, “I find that when certain ideas enter the public hemisphere, it is all too easy to lose control of them, irrespective of our original intention.”  
  
There was a judgment in there that Joffrey neither missed nor appreciated. Nevertheless, before he could comment, Varys plowed on “Regardless of the justification, what matters is that the war between Royce and Grafton broke out, and when it did, it didn’t happen alone. House Royce was awarded its new territories by Lord Paramount Jon Arryn, and they have not forgotten that, and nor shall they waver from the side of his son.  
  
“It is something that everyone knows. Lord Harrold included. When the Graftons went to war, he followed, both to save his ally and deal a mortal blow to one of Lord Robert’s. To justify his backing the Graftons to the army he had gathered, who remember were here to crusade against the First-Men Mountain-Clansmen, Lord Harrold agreed that the Royce’s weren’t Andal enough. Given that he still has an army, the crusaders must have believed him.  
  
“At this point, the rest of the Vale got involved. Lady Lysa Arryn saw what was happening, denounced Harrold as a traitor, and called her banners, and from there the Vale divided further.  
  
“Answering the call of Lady Arryn and Lord Robert, are the following High Lords. Firstly, House Corbray of Heart’s Home, High lords of Northweald. Secondly, House Redfort, High Lords of the Red Fort. Thirdly, House Royce of Runestone. Fourth and finally, House Royce, High Lords of Runestone. Between them, they command close to 16,000 men.  
  
“Answering the call of Lord Harrold are the following High Lords. House Hunter, High lords of Eastweld; House Grafton, High Lords of Gulltown; House Waynwood, High Lords of Ironoaks; House Belmore, High Lords of Strongsong; and House Saul, High Lords of The Bite. Between them, they command 17,000 men.”  
  
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” the High Septon cut in. “But in between them, is anyone crusading?”  
  
“They’re all crusading,” Tyrion cut in before Varys could answer, “Now if only they were crusading against our enemies, as opposed to each other…”  
  
“It’s not like this has been a total loss, my lords,” Varys posited before the discussion could continue, “I’m afraid there is more, and I am not sure if the news is good or bad.”  
  
A moment's silence, and then- “Well? On with it!”  
  
“Upon realizing that she was outnumbered, Lady Arryn wrote to her nephew and her brother, the King in the North and the Lord Paramount of the Trident respectively. She has offered to secede from the Seven Kingdoms and join the new Kingdom of the North in exchange for military aid against Harrold Arryn.”  
  
A beat of silence. Tyrion was the first to recover, “And how could this possibly be good news?”  
  
“Because in exchange, Lord Harrold decided it would be in his best interest to join the opposite side and- Well, it might be for the best if the Grand Maester just read you his raven.”  
  
With shaky hands, Pycelle reached within the folds of his brown robes and pulled out a piece of paper. The seal, though broken, was visible. It was the broken wheel of Waynwood, where Harrold Arryn was reportedly stationed.  
  
In shaky overtones, Pycelle slowly began to read:  
  
 _To the holy King Joffrey, the shield of our glorious faith,  
  
I declare that my beloved great-uncle, Lord Paramount Jon of House Arryn, has left no trueborn issue of his body. The child Robert Arryn is the product of an illicit rendezvous of Lord Petyr Baelish and Lady Lysa Tully.  
  
By laws of Gods and Men, I hereby place my claim on the Vale of Arryn.  
  
I have watched you from afar and have come to admire your just and faithful ways. Your handling of the First-Man savage, Eddard Stark, was an inspiration to all good Andals. When his equally ignoble and savage son marched upon you, none was more vocal than I when it came to the desire to come to your aid.  
  
Sadly, I was restrained from doing what ought to have been my duty by the foul adulterer, Lysa Tully, sister to the heathen-ally Edmure Tully. I see now that obeying her commands was a mistake.  
  
I am ashamed I obeyed her, and in my defense, I can offer only this. At the time, I had believed that her son was trueborn, and she was by law my liege. Once I had found out that this belief was false, I set about rectifying my mistake.  
  
Following the commands of you, oh glorious defender of the faith, as well the most holy, I had set about wiping out the First Man scourge infesting the Vale in the form of the Mountain Clans, as well as houses of certain ignoble origins.  
  
To my horror, I was restrained in my most holy task by the forces of Lysa Tully who wished to protect the savages, and in the service of her unholy task has contacted the forces of Robb Stark and Edmure Tully.  
  
While much of the Vale has selected me as their rightful liege and I outnumber the indigenous forces of the false-lords, their combined armies will turn the tides against me.  
  
Here, I come to my proposal.  
  
If you aid me in the face of our common foe, then on behalf of House Arryn and the Vale, I am willing to swear fealty in perpetuity to House Durrandon-Lannister and the Crown. To prove my sincerity, I am willing to sail to King’s Landing in-person to swear my oaths even before you devote any troops to aiding.  
  
In exchange, I only ask that when I sail back to the Vale, you send with me an army and the head of the man who cuckolded Jon Arryn, Lord Petyr Baelish.  
  
Harrold of House Arryn  
  
Lord Paramount of Mountain and Vale_  
  
Immediately upon finishing his reading of the letter, the room exploded into noise, none louder than Petyr Baelish, who protested his innocence at the top of his lungs. It didn’t save him.  
  
Joffrey had always planned on having him killed, right alongside Tyrion and Varys, but this letter justified moving up the schedule.  
  
“Order 66,” Joffrey commanded as the guards dragged Baelish out of the room; one holding a hand over his mouth to keep him from speaking. The guards paused, before the one on the right spoke, “It’ll be done, your grace. We’ll lock the traitor uptight.”  
  
Immediately, Baelish’s struggles got less frantic as his body language went from defiant to sullen compliance. He was probably thinking that his spies would break him out if he ended up in a holding cell.  
  
He would have been right. If he had been going to a holding cell, he would have had a chance to escape.  
  
By days end, both Varys and Baelish will be dead, leaving only Tyrion left to kill.  
  
Joffrey had planned this long in advance, after all. Not this exact scenario, of course, but rather the general chain of events that would lead to purge ending with his small council being purged of disloyal elements. It had been one of the first things that he had contemplated after coming up with his nationalism idea.  
  
Baelish couldn’t be trusted. He was far too power-hungry. Deciding that he needed to die was the easy part. Deciding the fates of Tyrion and Varys, on the other hand, was a bit more complicated.  
  
They had both served Daenerys Targaryen or would have come to in another life. And they both turned on her. Why?  
  
Varys was motivated by a single goal: Protecting the realm. His loyalty has always been to an ideal as opposed to a person, and he is willing to do whatever it took to ensure that Westeros remained stable with a good leader at the helm.  
  
Joffrey was aware that he didn’t meet Varys’ criteria for a good ruler even slightly. His plans would, conservatively, kill upwards of a million people and lead to the demise of at least two of the major kingdoms.  
  
There was no way that Varys would be loyal to him, and that meant that Joffrey needed to kill him. The question then became, when?  
  
Both the cases of Baelish and Varys are interesting because they had very strong arguments for keeping them alive. Baelish was the lover of Lysa Arryn. If Joffrey killed him, then there was a chance that the Vale would have joined the war against him as Lysa tried to avenge her beloved. Varys, meanwhile, was certainly the best master-of-whispers Joffrey could hope to have.  
  
They were also ‘loyal’ for the time being. Varys gained nothing from having Joffrey killed now. His end goal was a stable realm with a competent leader. If Joffrey died, then it was likely that Stannis would become king. Stannis would become king and kick off another civil war, this time with the Faith.  
  
Similarly, Baelish was loyal for the time being because if Stannis took the capital, he would become kindling.  
  
It was for those reasons Joffrey was content to allow them to live for the time being. It was for those reasons Baelish and Varys were willing to not assassinate him for the time being.  
  
That said, the first one to ‘betray’ the others would win their game. If Varys or Baelish betrayed Joffrey before he could betray them, then Joffrey would die, and they would win. If Joffrey betrayed them before they could betray him, he would win.  
  
Similarly, if Joffrey betrayed them too quickly, he would stand to lose highly effective members of his small council and draw the Vale into the war. If they betrayed him too quickly, they stood to destabilize the realm in the case of Varys and being killed in the case of Baelish.  
  
Now, the scenario had changed. With Lysa having entered the war against him already, Baelish had just lost his greatest shield against Joffrey and with it, his life.  
  
With the issuance, his council members were going to be led to believe that Baelsih was merely being arrested. In truth, he was being led to the cell where he would be killed.  
  
Come the night, Varys would also be killed.  
  
Come the morning, a report would be issued that the Lyseni Varys had tried to rescue his fellow foreigner Baelish from lawful imprisonment.  
  
Come the following evening, the news of their ‘treason’ would be the talk of King’s Landing. Alongside it, the moral lesson that you couldn’t trust foreigners. This would serve as justification for Joffrey’s latest law barring non-Andals from holding government positions.  
  
That was for the future though. For now, the council chambers were filled with relative silence as one of their numbers was dragged off to the dungeons by two of the King’s guards.  
  
“Relax,” Joffrey told them, “He will be granted a fair trial before anything is done. What do you think Varys? Could he be guilty of adultery?”  
  
Varys thought for a second before throwing his rival under the bus; “He has always boasted about having claimed the maidenhoods of both of Lord Hoster’s daughters, and the Lady Arryn had always seemed uncommonly fond of him.”  
  
Just like that, whatever sympathy the High Septon had for Baelish evaporated, giving Joffrey his most important supporter back. “Adultery,” the High Septon muttered, his two chins wobbling, “a foul crime.”  
  
“He will be punished, I assure you,” Joffrey reassured him swiftly. “Let not the laws of Gods go ignored. The righteous punishment is death, yes?”  
  
“It is your grace. If he is guilty, of course.”  
  
“Of course,” Joffrey nodded agreeably.  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
After that, Joffrey ordered the Small Council out, save for Varys, Pycelle, and the High Septon. Pycelle was ordered to take notes and not speak. Joffrey also commanded a map be brought to him.  
  
Varys would be dead by the night, and Joffrey wanted to make sure that his information was as up to date as possible.  
  
“Pycelle,” Joffrey commanded as an afterthought, “Make sure that you note today's date. It is the fifth day of the seventh moon, two-hundred-ninety-nine years after unification.” Turning to Varys, Joffrey asked, “What is the situation in the North?”  
  
“I am glad to report that the Ironborn has decided that the North is a much easier target than the Westerlands and have chosen to raid there. They have reached as far as Torrhen’s Square.”  
  
“So, they’re nearly at Winterfell,” Joffrey muttered.  
  
“I wouldn’t expect them to take Winterfell,” Varys said. “They don’t have the numbers. The party at Torrhen’s Square is a raiding party.”  
  
“Perhaps, perhaps,” Joffrey acknowledged despite knowing that they would. Instead, he asked, “So what does this mean exactly?”  
  
“I wouldn’t expect any troops moving South, your grace. Indeed, we might see the Northern army start to head north if we are fortunate. Or unfortunate as the case may be.”  
  
“Unfortunate?” Joffrey questioned. “If the northern army moves north, then the Westerlands will be free to resume shipping iron and steel to the crownlands, would they not? How can this be unfortunate?”  
  
“Both the North and the Vale share a border with the Trident. If they start heading North, then they’ll enter the Trident-”  
  
“And we won’t able to tell where they are heading,” Joffrey finished before stating the obvious: “We can’t allow the Vale to fall into Northern control, meaning we need to reinforce Lord Arryn’s forces.”  
  
“Easier said than done.” The High Septon peered at the map. “Where is Stannis?”  
  
“Still at Storm’s End, besieging the castle, your holiness.”  
  
“We have a total of…” The High Septon glanced at Joffrey, prompting him to answer, “At the moment? We have 14,000 soldiers in the army itself, as well as another 2,000 gold cloaks.”  
  
“Can we raise more?” the High Septon inquired.  
  
“No,” Joffrey answered after a beat. “The problem isn’t men, it is material. We lack the steel to produce weapons with which to arm the soldiers.”  
  
Turning back to Varys, Joffrey asked, “How many men does Stannis have and assuming they set out at this second, how long until they get here?”  
  
“Lord Stannis commands a host of 20,000 men. If they were to set out at this very second, they would get here in a month, give or take a week.”  
  
“We have more than enough troops to counter them then,” Joffrey said dismissively. In the show, Joffrey and the royal army began their defense with two-thousand men of the city watch, as well as twenty ships of the city watch.  
  
It had gone well enough. King’s Landing was very well defended with high walls. A mere numerical advantage of four-thousand wouldn’t be enough to break them, leaving Stannis with two options.  
  
He could either attack and try to besiege King’s Landing, which would result in him being pinned between the Tyrell and Royal armies when the Tyrells showed up or… “He’s not going to attack here,” Joffrey concluded. “We have too many troops. He won’t risk his army here.”  
  
Holding up a hand, to forestall any comments, Joffrey studied the map intently. If he were Stannis, where would he go?  
  
 _There are too many options,_ Joffrey realized. With control of Dragonstone and access to 230 ships, Stannis could attack where he pleased, take a city, garrison it, and reorient the bulk of his forces to attack another target before the royal army could respond.  
  
Rosby, Duskendale, Stokeworth were all vulnerable targets and if Joffrey allowed them to fall then he would look weak and unreliable; a bit like what was happening to Robb Stark. A king who couldn’t protect his kingdom wouldn’t be king for long.  
  
He needed to convince Stannis to attack the city so that he could decimate his army like had happened in canon, but how did he convince Stannis to come here?  
  
“We need to lower the number of soldiers in the city,” Joffrey spoke slowly, thinking aloud. The burnt of the damage done hadn’t been from men in the first place. It had been Tyrion’s wildfire ship that had killed the greatest number of men.  
  
If Joffrey ordered the Alchemist’s Guild to start producing Wildfire immediately, then he would have access to far more of the stuff than Tyrion had in canon. Afterward, a force of eight-thousand was still four times the size of what Joffrey commanded in canon.  
  
It should be more than enough to hold out until the Tyrells could rescue him.  
  
This did mean that he only had another eight-thousand poorly trained soldiers to give Lord Harrold, however. Would that be enough?  
  
No. Not even close. His eight-thousand added to Harrold’s seventeen-thousand gave him a total of twenty-five-thousand soldiers, going up against the combined might of the North, the Trident, and the traitor lords of Vale.  
  
The only way they would win was if they managed to keep the armies from combining and to do that, they would need to slow down Robb Stark and overwhelm Lysa Arryn before the Northern army arrived in her aid.  
  
The only way he could do that was if… Turning to the High Septon, Joffrey asked, “If I wrote a speech for you, would you be willing to give it?”


	7. Interlude I

"We have intercepted two letters headed for the Crag, your grace. They are from the bastard-king."

Robb Stark stilled as his war council looked up. After feasting on the heart of the Westerlands, the Northern army had been slowly making its way North, putting off a confrontation with the Westerlander army.

Robb had been winning his battles through trickery and misdirection. Given his success, he saw no reason to change his strategy.

Robb was slowly making his way North, outmaneuvering his enemy forces and outpacing them, giving the impression of a crossing back into the Trident. Little did they know that he intended to do a sharp turn to attack the Banefort and then the Crag. With this maneuver, he intended to once more attack a weak point in the Lannister defenses and go back on the offensive.

"Military Plans?" the Young-Wolf inquired eagerly. Had they somehow gotten word of his plans? Robb couldn't think of any other reason a message would be flying to the Crag. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Robb realized that would mean there was a spy on his council.

It was to his relief that his grand-uncle Brynden shook his head, and to his confusion at the grimace on Brynden's face as he did so. It was Great Jon Umber that spoke his mind, "Then why do you look like something bloody died?"

Not quite how Robb would have phrased it, but it got the point across. Without a word, Brynden drew out two pieces of paper, the messages that had been intercepted, and handed them to the seated Lord Rickard Karstark.

"It is the transcript of a speech," the aging lord said surprised, "From the High Septon." Quickly skimming the transcript, he let out a soft 'ah' followed by a glance at Robb, who was doing his best to look confident.

With his fingers steepled, his eyes steady, and his face serious, Robb asked, "What does it say?" He was worried at the reactions the generals that had seen the message were having. He could tell the rest of his war council was one edge as well.

Lord Karstark began to read, voice-only occasionally pausing to breathe.

" _Children of our beloved Andalos, my faithful brethren. O' children of the race favored by the Gods. Those of you who have come forward today have been drawn to this place by your piety, by your faith in the Gods and the King, by your regard for the Holy Sept. Today, we have a special message and exhortation for you._

" _For we wish you to know that a grave matter has brought us before you. The sad news has come from the Westerlands and the Vale that the First Men. An accursed and foreign race, enemies of the Gods, a people whose hearts are not right and whose spirits are not with the Gods; have invaded the lands of the Andals and devastated them with the sword, rapine, and fire._

" _Some of the Andals they have put to death, others they have tortured. The septs, they have either destroyed or used in their pagan rituals. They desecrate and overthrow the altars. They geld the Andals and pour the blood from the gelding on the roots of their heart trees._

" _Some they kill in a horrible way by cutting open the abdomen, taking out a part of the entrails and tying them to the branches of their heart trees; they then beat them and compel them to walk until all their entrails are drawn out and they fall to the ground. Some they use as targets for their arrows. They compel some to stretch out their necks and then they try to see whether they can cut off their heads with one stroke of the sword. It is better to say nothing of their horrible treatment of the women._

" _They have taken from us the entirety of the Riverlands, a tract of land so large that it takes more than two months to walk through it. Whose duty is it to avenge this and recover that land, if not yours? For to you more than to other nations the Gods has given the military spirit, courage, agile bodies, and the bravery to strike down those who resist you._

" _Let your minds be stirred to bravery by the deeds of your forefathers, and by the efficiency and greatness of Artys Arryn, The Winged Knight, and of the other kings who have destroyed kingdoms of the First men and established the Andal religion in their lands._

" _O bravest of knights, descendants of unconquered ancestors, do not be weaker than they but remember their courage._

" _Let no possessions keep you back, no solicitude for your property. Generation after generation, we have fought one another. We have fought over the rivers of the Trident, we have fought over the rocks of the Vale, the plains of the Reach, and the bountiful mines of the West._

" _On the account of greed, we have killed and devoured one another, forgetting we are all one people. We call each other 'Crownlander,' 'Riverlander,' 'Westerlander, 'Stormlander,' when in truth, we are all Andals, sons of Hugor of the Hills!_

" _While we carry on and mutually destroy one another, divided by the petty strifes of our shared history, the tide of greater conflict has turned against us. Let our hatred and quarrels cease, let our civil wars come to an end, and let all our dissensions stop._

" _Let us set on the road to the Kingdom of the First Men, take the land from that wicked people and make it our own. That land which, as the Seven-Pointed-Stars say, was given by the Gods to the Andals. Let us take the last of the kingdoms not held by the children of the Gods and bring it into our light._

" _The land itself asks and longs to be liberated and does not cease to beg you to come to her aid. She asks aid especially from you because, as I have said, God has given more of the military spirit to you than to other peoples. Set out on this journey and you will obtain the remission of your sins and be sure of the incorruptible glory of the kingdom of heaven."_

"Lies," it was a shocked Catelyn Stark that was the first that broke the silence after the letter ended, "all lies. For a holy man to say such things…"

"What heart trees?" Lord Umber spat, "We've been in the South for moons now. How could we be pouring blood onto the roots of heart trees when they've cut down all the heart trees in the south?"

And that broke the dam. All at once, members of the war council chimed in with things the letter said they did, but they hadn't. Things that they couldn't have possibly done.

"-destroying the Septs and overturning altars? I've never even been inside a Sept!"

"Put to death? Tortured? No shit. We're at war. Did these prissy Southern fucks forget how a war was fought?"

"Rapine? What, do they think we're going to stay here?"

All the while Robb Stark trembled at rage at the sheer unfairness of it all, his steepled fingers giving way to clenched fists.

First, they executed his honorable father, besmirched him and dragged his name through the mud. They gave him a traitor's death, lopping off his death before a crowd of cheering peasants. _They compel some to stretch out their necks and then they try to see whether they can cut off their heads with one stroke of the sword._

Now they sought to do the same to him. All they had accused him of doing, they were guilty of doing themselves.

Robb was an honorable lord. He not only spoke of honor like some of the Southern fucks that pranced about in their shiny armor, but he lived it.

In the position his army was in, most generals would have pillaged without care, putting towns to the sword by the dozens as they requisitioned supplies. In their wake, they would have left raped women and orphaned children; ones with no quarrel with them save for the unfortunate happenstance of where they lived.

For some, like Gregor Clegane, it wasn't even necessity that drove their actions, but their sadistic tendencies. _Devastated them with the sword, rapine, and fire._ Clegane, the dog of Tywin Lannister, had killed far more Andals with fire than Robb, that Robb could assure anyone who asked.

_The septs, they have either destroyed or used in their pagan rituals._ The septs? What of the heart trees that used to decorate the south? Where were they now, millennia after the Andals came from their accursed lands across the narrow sea?

Trying to clamp down on his fury, Robb tried to think. It was clear to all men with sense that these were vile lies. None on his side would believe it. The only question was, what did Joffrey hope to accomplish with this?

"A second letter," Robb said, the voice of the king cutting through the din. "You said there was a second letter?"

"It's not good news, your grace," Brynden Tully said. "Perhaps it would be best if we saved it for the morning?"

"I will hear it now," Robb said, a growl slipping into his voice as his eyes darkened with displeasure.

Brynden frowned but didn't argue. "As you wish," he acquiesced. He handed the second letter over to Rickard, who accepted it with shaking hands.

_To my Lord of the Crag,_

_In the wake of recent events, a new crusade has been declared against the savages of the north and all Lords of proper descent are expected to partake. In my capacity as the Head of the Septs of New Andalos, as well as King, I have established the following rules regarding the Crusade._

_Firstly, if an Andal lord loyal to the crown were to conquer the lands of a First-Men family, then by rights, the land is his. However, he may not rule it himself. Instead, the land must be given to a spare son, brother, cousin or so forth. This spare must then form a cadet branch of the house he descended from._

_If a peasant of the proper heritage were to lead a crusade in the name of the Gods, then they will be ennobled and given the lands they conquered as a gift for their services. Afterward, it is up to them to reward their followers for their services under him._

_Secondly, no man of the race accursed by the Gods is to remain in Andal controlled lands. If you are to take control of a province, it is hereby required by law that you expel the natives or purge them. The option selected will be left to the discretion of the commanding lord._

_Thirdly, it is written in the Seven-Pointed-Star that no man shall lay with a beast. It is upon this law that I declare that all marriages between Andal and Savage forbidden._

_Finally, regarding the Andal houses of the Riverlands. I have had missives sent to the Lords of the Trident explaining the situation, with a request they recant for their sins. If they agree to bend the knee and denounce Robb Stark, all shall be forgiven and no violence against them will be tolerated._

_Further, the crown shall be extending lines of credit to aid in the restoration of their lands as well as stationing soldiers to make up for their depleted militaries. If they bend the knee, I shall help them back to their feet and reaffirm their rights to their land._

_If they refuse, then they shall be excommunicated by the Sept and be declared race-traitors. As race-traitors, they stand to lose all their protections and privileges as Andals and will be subjected to the same laws as regards the First Men._

_The Gods Will It,_

_Joffrey I of House Durrandon-Lannister_

_High King of New Andalos and Emperor of Westeros_

_Defender of the Faith and Supreme Head of the Septs of New Andalos_

"That…" Lord Umber struggled to find the right word before finally roaring, "bastard! That fucking bastard. How dare he! We Umbers have ruled our lands for over eight millennia, and he would take our lands? I welcome this piss-ant king to come north, and I'll show him why no Southern king has ever ruled the north."

For many minutes, outrage swirled through the northern camp as they fumed, querulous in their impotent rage, but with nothing to quarrel with as all their neighbors shared their indignation. Instead, they entertained themselves with insults to the incest-born boy-king atop the Iron Throne, to his king slayer father who remained in their custody and his whore mother; each lord competing to be more creative and vicious with his insults.

The only man not participating in this fine sport was the King-In-The-North himself. Instead, he turned both his eyes and his fine military mind towards the map of Westeros.

Not even Joffrey could be so idiotic to try to invade the North with the onset of winter, could he? When winter came, any army heading north would freeze to death long before they made any headway. The North would be invulnerable and, "We're not in the north," Robb breathed out in realization, the King's voice heard only by those closest to him.

"Your Grace?" Lord Wylis Manderly, the heir to White Harbor, asked surprised, having barely heard Robb's statement. The rest of the lords quieted down, staring at their King, waiting for him to speak again.

Slowly Robb began to speak again, "When winter arrives, the North becomes invulnerable to invaders. Food freezes and animals enter hibernation, making it impossible to scavenge. With the scarcity of villages and towns, it is impossible to pillage or requisition supplies. Supply lines become difficult to maintain as snow piles up on the road and horses have a difficult time with the icy terrain even at the best of times. That's not even mentioning the cold which will kill a man inadequately dressed in an hour or two.

"Those are all the dangers once they enter the North itself, but even before that, they need to traverse the treacherous roads through the swamps of the neck, harried by our loyal crannogmen every step of the way. Once their army has been whittled down by poison and arrows, they come to Moat Cailin, a stronghold that has guarded the North against southern ambitions for ten-thousand years.

"At its height, it was a great stronghold, with twenty towers, a wooden keep, and a great basalt curtain wall as high as that of Winterfell's. Today only great blocks of black basalt lay scattered about, half sunk in the ground where the wall once stood, and the keep has rotted away. Still, it remains a daunting challenge for any southerner looking to come north.

"These would all be powerful advantages for a northern army looking to fight southerners, but we aren't in the north are we?"

It was Wylis who caught on first, "They wish to cut us off."

Robb nodded. "The bastard is hoping that we'll overextend ourselves, giving himself time to seize Moat Cailin and secure the neck before we could return to defend it. Let's oblige him, shall we my lords?"

The veteran lords recognized the look on Robb's face. It was the same look he carried when he released the Lannister spy with the message that he was marching towards Tywin to meet him on the field of battle, right before he turned around and ambushed Jamie Lannister's forces at Riverrun.


	8. Interlude II

“How many?” Stannis Baratheon asked, not bothering to turn around.  
  
“Another two-hundred, your grace.”  
  
Stannis grunted his reply; a terse “leave me.”  
  
Stannis didn’t bother turning around as the pitter-patter of footprints grew dimmer behind him, signifying the messenger’s departure. Instead, he stared out at Storm’s End as he had been doing for the past hour; trying to think over the general noise of the army, his army, going about their business. Why couldn’t anything be simple?  
  
He had given Penrose a fortnight to surrender the castle to him. A fortnight, a period chosen out of both, the love he bore the old man that had raised him, as well as for a simpler, more practical reason.  
  
His army wasn’t his, not truly. When he had set sail from Dragonstone, it had been with merely five-thousand men. Only the Lords of the Narrow Sea had answered his call, and how much of that was out of loyalty, and how much of that was out fear was debatable.  
  
No. Not debatable. Stannis Baratheon wasn’t a man prone to self-deception.  
  
Of all the things Stannis could lay claim to, the love of his subjects wasn’t one of them. The Lords of the Narrow Sea answered his call, not because they loved him, but because he had the biggest fleet in Westeros and, with Joffrey preoccupied with the mayhem on the mainland, the largest army that could turn against them.  
  
If they declared for Joffrey or Renly, he would have reached them far before either could send aid and from there, it would be a simple matter to bring down their keep over their heads. The Lannisters weren’t the only ones capable of dealing with treacherous bannermen.  
  
The answered his call because of fear, not love.  
  
Perhaps, if things had come to blows with Renly, they would have deserted in droves, but it hadn’t. Renly had been brought down by Melisandre and her dark magic, and with that, the situation had changed.  
  
The Tyrells refused to answer his call. That was fine. Once he had dealt with Joffrey, they would get theirs.  
  
Privately, Stannis could admit that he would enjoy dispensing justice more than he ought to. He wasn’t a man prone to self-deception, after all.  
  
He remembered the siege of Storm’s End well. He remembered the sounds of tourneys and the sights of feasts set up outside his walls as the Reach Lords danced and japed, all the while he and his starved.  
  
With a start, Stannis glanced back at the castle of his birth. _This is the second time that Penrose has withstood a siege in Storm’s End,_ Stannis thought, _and this time it wasn’t the Tyrells that were putting the castle under siege._  
  
The thought put a bitter taste in his mouth. With a swallow, Stannis did his best to dismiss the doubts creeping upon him.  
  
The time for contemplation was over. It had died with Renly. Now was the time for action.  
  
But how to act? That was the question.  
  
The Tyrells had refused his call, but the Stormlord's… the Stormlord's were a different story.  
  
Not all had forgotten him. Not all had forgotten that he was the son of Steffon Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End. Not all had forgotten that it was he, not Renly, that was the elder brother and therefore the rightful Lord of the Stormlands. Not all had forgotten that they had owed allegiance to his family, in one form or another, since the Age of Hero’s.  
  
By right, they should have rallied to him from the start, as was their duty. They had forgotten it.  
  
Once Renly died, the Stormlands started drifting to his side, more due to a lack of options than anything else. Stannis might have been the least of the Baratheon’s in their eyes (and oh how that grated on his nerves, to be considered less than _Renly_ of all people) but he was a Baratheon, nonetheless.  
  
Perhaps more importantly, due to flocking to Renly, the Storm Lords had been marked as rebels and traitors by the crown. Just because their candidate for King was dead didn’t mean that they were suddenly innocent of conspiring to dethrone the reigning monarch.  
  
It was widely held that if Joffrey managed to deal with the North, he would turn his attention south towards all those who betrayed him.  
  
The Storm Lords were reluctant to follow Stannis, but eventually, enough things had stacked up to ensure most of the region declared for him.  
  
_Twenty-thousand men. Twenty-thousand was what I was promised. Twenty-thousand was what I expected. Twenty-thousand was what was owed to me._  
  
Without warning, Stannis picked up his finely engraved silver goblet and tossed it into the sea with a muffled scream of rage. “That damned letter,” Stannis whispered to himself, his voice haggard. “If it wasn’t for that damned letter…  
  
Vows are words, words are wind, and men are men. Not all men were so bound by duty as Stannis. Not all men held their honor so high and dear.  
  
Many had been those that would seek to see Stannis compromise his integrity. ‘You are too much like iron,’ they would whisper. ‘You’ll break before you bend. You’ll break one of these days, my lord. Count on it.’  
  
Cravens and fools the whole lot of them. Why should he have to lower himself to the level of beggars and whores?  
  
Stannis was honorable and dutiful. The fact that other men weren’t was a flaw in them, not in him. Why should he change for their faults?  
  
_“Was it honorable and dutiful to kill your younger brother?”_  
  
Hurriedly Stannis swiveled around. Where had that voice come from? Right first, then left. Nothing. He was alone.  
  
_That was different,_ he told himself. Renly was a would-be usurper, one who had risen an army of a hundred-thousand to bar Stannis from his rightful throne. Even worse, Renly was a trueborn Baratheon.  
  
If anyone could have kept Stannis from his throne, it was Renly.  
  
Killing a usurper, putting down a threat- That was the honorable thing to do. That was the right thing to do. It was his duty, and while it gave him no pleasure-  
  
_A flash of red hair. Supple skin and pleasurable groans,_  
  
-it was his duty, and Stannis was always a man of duty.  
  
His army was made up of different creatures, however. Men who fell prey to greed and ambition far too easily. When the letter came from the Lannister bastard, he had offered certain things that were all too tempting for some.  
  
First, he offered amnesty to all Lords of Andal descent for fighting against him. In the Stormlands, everyone was of Andal descent. It was one of the first kingdoms to have fallen to Andal warlords and while most noble houses could claim a First Man ancestor, most hadn’t intermarried with one in over five millennia.  
  
It made sense when one thought about it. The last truly First Men houses were all located in the North, hundreds of miles away. Marriages were generally done for either financial gain or military alliances. The North was too far away to send military aid, and too poor to give much in the way of financial support.  
  
The result was that Joffrey’s offer appealed to all the Storm Lord’s and without the sword of Damocles hanging over their necks, their already tenuous support for Stannis got a lot more sluggish.  
  
The second carrot Joffrey offered was even worse than the first. The chance to gain lands and titles in exchange for martial service. All the Storm Lords had to do was head north with their armies and abandon Stannis. Whatever land they conquered was theirs too keep.  
  
For nobles such as those of House Connington of Griffin’s Roost, this was too good of an offer. Their previous lord, Jon Connington, had been a Targaryen loyalist; a dear friend of Prince Rhaegar’s and Aerys’s former hand. After the Targaryen defeat, they had lost a good deal of their wealth and lands.  
  
The current generation of Connington's had three males. In generations past, all three of them might have been given lands of their own, but since their fall from grace, they could no longer afford to.  
  
What Stannis offered was a chance to regain their honor, while Joffrey offered a chance to regain their wealth and power.  
  
It was to their discredit that they chose Joffrey over Stannis, but no matter how much Stannis might rage, it wouldn’t bring them back to his side.  
  
Not two weeks past, they had melted away with their two-thousand troops in the dead of night to make the journey north, and they weren’t alone. Every day, Stannis woke up to the news of desertions.  
  
He had been promised, twenty-thousand soldiers. Of that number, close to sixteen-thousand had joined him before the letter arrived. Since then, the number had decreased to thirteen-thousand and was slowly ticking downwards.  
  
He was still well-provisioned though. He had food, water, and fodder stockpiled under the assumption that he was going to be feeding twenty-thousand men during both the siege of Storm’s End, as well as the campaign in the Crownlands. Now that his army was down to thirteen-thousand, the food and water would last even longer.  
  
Stannis snorted a humorless grunt. Clouds and silver linings.  
  
The problem wasn’t supply-lines, it was the men.  
  
Stannis stared balefully at the castle before him as he realized he couldn’t stay here. If he did, it wouldn’t matter if he took Storm’s End; he wouldn’t have the men to win the war. The entire reason he wanted the castle in the first place was the legitimacy it would give him. He had been hoping that would win the more reticent Storm Lords over.  
  
The way the war had developed, Storm’s End no longer served as a strategic role. The new plan was to advance on King’s Landing with what men he did have. Last he heard, with the war in the North going disastrously for the Lannister forces, King’s Landing had been stripped of men to support the war effort.  
  
Joffrey had a mere two-thousand Gold Cloaks remaining under his command; assuming he hadn’t thought to bolster his numbers. Even if he had, Stannis was confident that without the iron and steel of the Westerlands and Vale, he couldn’t arm any large number of soldiers, nevermind training them.  
  
No, Stannis would have the advantage of numbers. His soldiers were better trained as well. Most of his soldiers were men at arms or knights with years of training under their belt. Most of Joffrey’s were peasants.  
  
The only real challenge was the city itself. King’s Landing had high walls and impressive fortifications... in its glory days. As it so stood, Robert had preferred that coin be spent on wine and whores to fortifications and infrastructure.  
  
The walls were an issue, but Stannis was confident he could breach them through the Mud Gate.  
  
As a bonus, once the troops had been loaded onto ships, they couldn’t desert. They could hardly swim to shore, after all.  
  
All signs pointed towards an attack on King’s Landing being the right choice.  
  
_And yet won’t be sailing today either,_ Stannis thought to himself, dissatisfied. There was a storm brewing. After having spent the first half of his life in this very castle, he knew the signs well.  
  
The Storm Lands was aptly named and Storm's End had fierce storms even by Storm Land standard; so much so that the bay outside the castle was known as ‘Shipbreaker Bay.’ It was the bay that his parents had drowned in so many years ago. Cassandra and Steffon Baratheon.  
  
The last thing he needed was to get his fleet smashed in and lose more men. What he needed was something to stop the storm. What he needed was a miracle.  
  
And yet didn’t he have a witch that promised just that?  
  
With a determined glint in his eye, Stannis set off to find Melisandre.


	9. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Date: 8/16/299 AC

“Stannis will be here by nightfall.”

Joffrey stilled. Turning to face Tyrion fully, he spoke in a harsh whisper. “I appear to have misheard you. Repeat that.”

“Stannis will be here by nightfall. He has been spotted near the coast of Rosby.” Now was not the time to mince words. Tyrion knew that his words would displease his nephew, but he needed to know.

“Are you certain?” Joffrey asked. To Tyrion’s surprise it did not appear as though Joffrey was panicking; something that he was on the verge of doing himself. Instead, Joffrey just seemed confused.

“As certain as I can be, your grace,” Tyrion uttered. “I haven’t seen the fleet for myself of course, but the reports were quite convincing.”

A moment's silence and then, “Has Storm’s End fallen yet?”

Tyrion was not sure that was an important consideration now. Nonetheless, he answered, “Not to my knowledge.”

Joffrey nodded. “Then to be here, Stannis would have had to abandon the siege of his ancestral home. If he lifted the siege even momentarily, then the larders could be restocked and all his progress undone, wasting weeks of work. Do you think Stannis is the type to do such a thing?”

“No, your grace, but-”

“Have the Stormlanders managed to somehow invent teleportation while we weren’t looking?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Then to be here, Stannis will have had to have abandoned his supply lines, as well as the chance to gather a larger army-”

“There was nothing to gather.”

Joffrey blinked, surprised. “Excuse me?”

In a tumbled rush, as though to impress onto Joffrey a sense of urgency by the speed of his speech, words fell out of Tyrion’s mouth in a ceaseless torrent. “Your crusade offered riches and land, as well as amnesty for all who fought for Renly. It was far too tempting for many of the Storm Lord’s. They have started abandoning Stannis’s cause to make their way North.

“The longer that Stannis sits around, the worse that his position gets as lords and their knights abandon him in favor of the crusade. The longer that Stannis sits around, the fewer troops he has. So, he read the situation-”

“And figured out that the army he had now was the army that he stuck with,” Joffrey finished. Despite himself, Tyrion was gratified to see the glimmer of horrified realization dawning on Joffrey’s proud face.

Tyrion nodded, nonetheless. “If waiting would only make his army weaker, why wait?”

A moment's silence followed as Joffrey lost himself to his thoughts. “It is too soon. Why didn’t we hear of this before?”

Tyrion shot him a deadpan look. “Are you familiar with the story of Maegor the Cruel?”

Joffrey shot him a look of mild confusion. Cautiously, he replied, “In the passing. Why?”

Tyrion smiled. “Maegor the Cruel, son of Visenya and Aegon the Conqueror, had three grand maesters that sought to advise him. Maegor didn’t want advice though, so instead of taking their counsel, he took their heads. In his eye’s disagreement was treason, and the punishment for treason was death.

“An exile and second son, he took a throne he had no right to, and when the first of the four Grand Maesters advised him that it would not end well, he had him killed.

“The second Grand Maester, he had killed for daring to object to the Targaryen practice of polygamy. You see, the first of his wives was the niece of the High Septon. It didn’t take a genius to recognize that said High Septon might not appreciate Maegor taking wives besides her and that him doing so might enrage the faith.

“Did Maegor listen? Of course not. He took the Grand Maesters head and marched on the faith, burning cities and castles, slaughtering women and children. When he finally returned to King’s Landing, it was with the skulls of two thousand of his subjects.

“The third Grand Maester for declaring him the father of his heir. His second wife had been pregnant, but when she gave birth, the babe turned out to be stillborn. Even worse, the babe was a monster with scaled skin and wings. Maegor had the Grand Maester beheaded.”

Tyrion offered a sardonic grin, meeting Joffrey’s eyes with his mismatched stare. “How did the story end? With rebellion. Maegor’s cruelty may have stamped out the fires of rebellion for a time, but it wasn’t long before the hatred of the masses outweighed their fear of him.

“Maegor’s nephew, Jaehaerys the Wise, rose against him, backed by House Baratheon, Lannister, Tyrell, and Arryn. His niece and involuntary wife, Rhaena Targaryen, stole away in the night to join Jaehaerys, adding her dragon to his two. Best of all, when Maegor tried to send ravens to summon his forces, he found that he couldn’t. His Grand Maester had fled into the night, learning from the mistakes of his predecessors.”

“Enough,” Joffrey yelled suddenly. Throughout the entirety of Tyrion’s speech, he had been getting increasingly tense, his face growing increasingly red until he could take it no more. Quieter, Joffrey repeated, “enough. Your point has been made… uncle.”  
Tyrion didn’t let up. “My point, your grace, is that a man who executes his advisors isn’t one who can expect good advice for long.” A pause followed while Joffrey directed a furious glare towards his uncle. Undeterred, Tyrion spoke softly but with certainty. “You had Varys and Baelish killed, did you not?”

“Varys attempted to free Baelish from the black cells so they-”

More forcefully, Tyrion repeated, “You had Varys and Baelish killed. Did you not?”

Joffrey snarled wordlessly. Gripping the chalice filled with red wine, he tilted the drink back, only stopping when the cup was empty, before tossing it aside where it clattered against the wall and fell on the floor. Still, Tyrion didn’t look away.

Petulantly, angered by having failed to gain a reaction, Joffrey hissed, “so what if I did?”

“You wanted to know why we didn’t know that Stannis was at our gates before he damn near crashed into it? Well, it might have something to do with the fact that you killed our spymaster in the middle of a war. Since taking the crown, you have ignored nearly all your advisors, from your mother, the Queen Regent, too-”

“Mother is far too short-sighted to do what needs to be done,” Joffrey hissed at the monstrous creature before him, wishing he had a weapon on him. He would kill the imp one day; he swore to himself. Even if that were the last thing he did, he would kill the imp.

“My apologies, your grace. I had forgotten you were a greenseer. The faith will be delighted to know,” Tyrion said with a little laugh.

“Decade after decade. War after war. Westeros is always either on the brink of a civil war or fighting one. I am doing what I need to do to ensure that our family survives. I am doing what I need to do to ensure that this is the last civil war we fight.”

“I’m sure Maegor thought the same thing,” Tyrion replied. “I’m sure he died the way all tyrants do; expecting history to vindicate him. It hasn’t. The first thing that any good advisor will tell you is that history might be written with fire and blood, but histories aren’t.

“Your strategy allowed Stannis to approach the capital in a timetable far exceeding what we were prepared for, catching us almost completely off guard. Your strategy would drown the North and the Riverlands in fire and blood, but it isn’t too late to stop that. You can always change the plan. You are king-”

That was when Joffrey’s patience for Tyrion’s advice ran out. “Get out,” Joffrey said, his teeth grit together. “Get out now.”

Tyrion ignored him, continuing to talk. To hurry the creature along Joffrey tossed a plate at his head, something Tyrion had plenty of experience dodging thanks to Cersei. Seeing that his nephew was beside himself with rage, Tyrion finally decided that it was time to leave.  
With a mocking bow, Tyrion exited the chamber allowing Joffrey to stew in his thoughts.

Despite having chased out the monster, Joffrey didn’t feel any better. If anything, the idea that danger might be approaching filled him with a near-hysterical fear. How was he going to get out of this?

Stannis should have attacked King’s Landing on the seventh day of the ninth moon, year two-ninety-nine, after he had taken Storm’s End and finished marshaling his troops. That was what Joffrey had planned for.

This would have allowed Joffrey to get his affairs in order and crush Stannis in a decisive battle. It would have allowed him to construct the chain, it would have allowed the wildfire to be produced, it would have allowed the defense to be planned and polished. None of that had happened yet.  
Joffrey had ordered the alchemists guild to start producing Wildfire, but it took time to produce even a single cask. Joffrey didn’t have enough for Tyrion’s fireship trick. The chain Tyrion created didn’t exist because Joffrey had used all the steel on swords and spears. Without the trump cards, the defense was going to get a lot more complicated.

To make matters worse, neither of his allies were able to aid him. The Tyrells had started moving earlier than they would have if Joffrey had left negotiations up to Tywin, but they weren’t scheduled to arrive for a week and change. The fastest a medieval army could move was about twelve miles a day with good supply lines and competent leadership.

The Reach army had set out on the twenty-second day of the sixth moon, from Highgarden, seven-hundred-sixty miles from King’s Landing. It would take them sixty-three days at the earliest to reach the capital, meaning that they would be here at around the twenty-fifth day of the eighth moon.  
That was nine days away.

The Lannister army was supposed to have lost a battle at Red Fork on the twentieth of the eighth moon, on the other hand. This would halt Tywin’s movements westwards and sent him east to defend the capital. This had not happened yet, so as far as Joffrey was aware, the Lannister army was still heading west. Between informing Tywin and the army arriving, it could take moons.

The battle was going to be tonight. Joffrey didn’t have moons. He would have to win the war with what he could scramble on short notice.  
Unfortunately, that wasn’t much. Joffrey had misread the situation and misallocated his resources.

He had preemptively sent his army up North via the King’s Road, ten-thousand soldiers of his fourteen thousand. They were supposed to be heading through the Riverlands to the Vale. If they couldn’t reach the Vale for whatever reason, they were to pivot and prepare to keep the Starks out of the Vale… or die trying.

Last Joffrey had heard, the army was in Duskendale. Berton Crakehall had made his way to Duskendale to recruit more soldiers. If there was a chance for battle against the Starks, he would need more troops.

When Joffrey had allocated troops, he had chosen to give Crakehall nearly all his valuable swordsmen as well as some of his spearmen, but he had retained all his archers. He couldn’t afford to part with troops that could fire from high walls; they would be too valuable in defending the capital.

To get archers and heavy cavalry, Lord Crakehall had decided to visit Duskendale; a city that had both. Between the heavy cavalry of Duskendale, the archers of Rosby, and the light infantry of the lords of Crackclaw Point, the army Lord Berton would be leading was estimated to have increased to roughly sixteen-thousand troops.

All of which was located somewhere near Duskendale. Joffrey sighed to himself as he rose out of the seat, he had collapsed into. He supposed he ought to summon them back to the capital, though they probably wouldn’t be able to return before the first battle.

With any luck, the forces Joffrey had would be able to fight off the initial force when Stannis tried to storm the city, forcing him to lay siege. Then, when either the main host under Burton Crakehall returned or the Tyrell forces reached the capital, the defenders could attempt a sally from the walls, pinning Stannis between two forces and destroying him.

Part of Joffrey sincerely doubted the strategy would work, but it was a starting point. Joffrey set off to find Pycelle to send his commands to Crakehall and Ser Jocelyn Ironhand to finalize a plan of defense.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
“The King is summoning us back to King’s Landing, my lord.”

A raven could fly fifty miles per hour, and as fate would have it, Duskendale was one hundred and sixty miles away from King’s Landing. In little over three hours, the raven had reached the ruling lord, from where the message was passed on to Ser Harwyn.

“With what army?”

Harwyn blinked at the odd question. Briefly, he wondered if it was a trick question, before dismissing it. He didn’t have the heritage to question a Crakehall, and the last thing he wished to do was irritate General Burton Crakehall.

Instead, he answered the question at face value. “I would presume the King is referring to that army, my lord.”

The general snorted, “how many men do you reckon are down there?”

“As of this morning, my lord? Twelve-thousand-seventy-six.”

If the general found it odd that Harwyn knew the exact number, he didn’t show it. Instead, he nodded and said, “I figured it was something like that. Now, how many soldiers do you think that Stannis has?”

Harwyn frowned at this. “Hard to say, my lord. If I had to take a guess, it would have to be around twenty thousand. Maybe more.”

Burton nodded at that. “Twenty thousand. A fair number of them household knights or men at arms.” He pointed at the soldiers beneath the banner of Durrandon-Lannister, “twelve thousand. Most of them peasant levies with a few moons of training at most. One army is not like the other.”

“If the army at King’s Landing tried to sally-”

“Alright, imagine that they try to sally. Together, we are outnumbered sixteen thousand to twenty thousand. More importantly, such a thing is going to be difficult if not impossible to coordinate. Look at this,” Burton held up the note and pointed towards the last section. “The Grand Maester explicitly tells us not to send a return message for fear of it being intercepted. How exactly do you plan to coordinate a sally with our attack in these conditions?”

Burton didn’t expect an answer to his query and Harwyn didn’t have one. That said, while Harwyn may not have an answer as to what they should do, he was still capable of recognizing what they shouldn’t do.

“And yet to sacrifice the capital without a fight is an intolerable proposition.” Harwyn held his breath, worried that Burton would take offense to his mild disagreement and have him stripped of his rank. Burton didn’t.

Instead, he smiled devilishly. “Who said anything about sacrificing the capital? No, the capital will be just fine regardless of what we do. The defenses are too established, the city too fortified. Stannis would have to be a fool to attempt to storm the city, so he’ll have to lay siege. Once more, the city is fairly well-provisioned thanks to King Joffrey’s proposals and can hold out for months.”

Crakehall scrunched his nose in a fashion Harwyn knew well. The general always did that when he was picturing a map. Finally, he spoke, “We’ll have to remove ourselves from our supply lines.” Before Harwyn could protest, he continued, “every soldier is carrying one week of rations, and our baggage train is carrying another three weeks’ worth. Enough so that we could force a march to Sow’s Horn in less than a week without having to worry about scavenging for supplies.

“Once there, we’ll be on the King’s Road and Sow’s Horn itself is filled with farms. We can restock there and prepare resupply. Now that King’s Landing is under siege, they won’t be sending food to the city anymore, meaning that they can send their food to us instead.

“After that, we can move with speed along the King’s Road to Hayford, make a river crossing to Bramsfort, before making our way south to Dalston keep. There we can join our forces to the Tyrell host and smash into Stannis with our superior numbers.”

Personally, Harwyn thought the plan was a bit convoluted and a bit too twisty. The route plan itself was complicated by the fact that most of the provinces the general mentioned didn’t have roads connecting them, though admittedly a lot of that was made up for by the terrain. Plains weren’t too difficult to cross at the worst of times. The other part was that there was no telling how close the Tyrell host was.

Harwyn wasn’t sure that relying on them was a good idea, but Lord Crakehall appeared to be resolved. With a sigh, Harwyn said “Then by your leave, I’ll summon the rest of the commanders. We ought to plan our move to Sow’s Horn.”  
After receiving an affirmative, he set off to do just that.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
“Lookin’ forward to lootin’ Sow’s Horn?”

Commander Hallis Mollen, brother to Lord Brandon of Dawnforest, stared at the latest blight on his life and sanity with growing irritation. Donnel of Travelton was a nuisance of the highest order.

A lack of respect for his superiors; both within and out of the army was the least of Donnel’s armada of flaws. His treatment of a noble such as Brandon was egregious enough on it’s own, but it was joined by a complete lack of organizational skills, the inability to march without whining, and his habit of jumping at shows.

The greatest of his flaws was a complete inability to shut up. After a while, Hallis had stopped listening to his rambling, instead opting to stare at his lips unthinkingly, counting the seconds. It was amazing the sheer amount of words one can spit out when one forgoes the need to think.

Perhaps if he humored the irritation, it would finally leave him in peace? Hallis didn’t have much hope, but it was the only option he had left. Nothing else had worked.

Grudgingly, he bit out a short, “No.”

That didn’t deter Donnel, because of course it didn’t. Instead the nuisance nodded sympathetically. “Yeah, can’t say I’m too into it either old friend. I mean, Lucky Town back at the Golden Tooth was great, yeah know? Plenty of women, and gold, and food for everyone. By the Old Gods and New, that was a good one.”

The nuisance trailed off dreamily, granting Hallis a few seconds of precious silence, in which he tried not to contemplate whether those women were willing or not. Given that Donnel had been in the process of ransacking their homes, he sincerely doubted that they were.

Before he could think too deeply on the subject, Donnel started speaking yet again. “I’ma all filled up with booty though. My loot space is all filled up, and if I wanna take any more, I’m gonna need to discard a few things, and I’d hate ta do tha’. Too many,” here his smile took on a lecherous quality, “souvenirs.”

Hallis shot him a disgusted look which the brute appeared to miss completely. Unable to help himself, he replied, “Have you considered that these southerners might take this as justifications for their petty hatreds. Some of them already believe us to be nothing more than beasts and the atrocities committed there won’t do anything but reinforce their intolerance.”

“We be at war old friend,” Donnel shrugged. “If we lose this war, none of that will matter. We all be dead at the hands of the southern fucks. If we win the war, none of that will matter. They be dead at our hands.”

“What about after?” Hallis asked shrewdly. “We still need to live together, don’t we?”

Donnel laughed at that. “We are our own kingdom if we win, brother. We don’t need them. This will be the last time we see the south, and if they come north?” Donnel’s grin became a vicious thing. “We give them a proper northern welcome.”

“And you think that gives you the right to do what you want?”

Donnel still hadn’t lost that damned grin. Shrugging yet again, his right hand went to scratch his crotch, while his left scratched his neck. “It’s why we’re marching. The wine, the women, the fighting, yeah?”

“I am marching for duty,” Hallis retorted, “I am marching to avenge our Lord Paramount and free Lady Sansa.”

Donnel stopped at that, staring at his as though he couldn’t believe what he had heard. Finally, he burst into raucous laughter drawing more than a few eyes and causing Hallis to flush with a mixture of embarrassment and anger. “You-”

Donnel held a hand up cutting him off. With great mirth, the nuisance looked at Hallis and said, “What do they do with murderers?”

Hallis frowned at the non-sequitur. “They have them killed or sent to the wall?”

Donnel’s eyes glinted. “What about soldiers who kill?”

“That’s completely different. Soldiers are fighting to defend their homes and families, whereas murderers are vile-”

“Our homes are thousands of miles north of here and is currently being ransacked by fookin’ squids, not this boy-king. My home wasn’t threatened when I offered to come here. I didn’t come for whoever this Sansa woman is, and all I know about the old Lord Paramount is that he is the one that would have beheaded me for doing what I wanted.

“No, I’m here to have fun, old friend. I’m here for the thrill of combat and the glory of the kill. I’m here for the joy of taking women after killing their husbands. I’m here for the booty.”

There was a savage thrill in his voice, Hallis dimly noted. A bestial longing. It scared him nearly as much as it disgusted him.

For the first time, Hallis was glad Donnel was here. He could see no man more deserving of a suicide mission than he.

King Robb had done something similar once before at the Battle of Whispering Wood. King Robb had split his forces so that two-thousand soldiers were heading towards Lord Tywin, while the rest headed towards Riverrun to defeat Jamie Lannister.

Because Tywin and Jamie were under the impression that the entirety of the Northern army was coming towards them, Jamie had his guard down, allowing for an ambush that dealt disproportionate casualties.

Now, the king needed to delay the army he believed was coming up the King’s Road. He needed to capture and secure Moat Cailin before any southern army could do so.

To that end, he sought to sell the illusion that the Starks were coming to the Crownlands with the entirety of the Northern army to capture the capital and close out the war. To do that King Robb had split off a sizeable portion of his force and sent them with the bare minimum supplies to take Sow’s Horn and disrupt enemy supply lines heading into the Riverlands.

Hallis was no fool though. That far behind enemy lines, there was nowhere safe for them to retreat to. In a week, they would reach the Riverlands. And in a week, they would give their lives for the North.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
"That's what we are: ghosts. Waiting for you in the dark. You can't see us, but we see you. No matter whose cloak you wear: Lannister, Stark, Baratheon, you prey on the weak, the Brotherhood Without Banners will hunt you down."

He had said those words so proudly once upon a time, and yet as the days drew on, they became harder and harder to keep. Beric Dondarrion had three thousand men under him. He was going up against a force of tens of thousands with the express goal of keeping the small folk safe.

How to do that though? For the most part, the Brotherhood Without Banners operated in the Riverlands, where the armies pillaging the smallfolk belonged to the Lannisters and the crown. If the Starks and Tully’s were fighting defensively, they shared a common purpose, and through that, their interest was aligned.

Now, the situation changed. The Northern forces had pillaged Lucky Town, and with that, the common cause had fallen to the wayside. Now they sought to do the same to the Crownlands and devastate Sow’s Horn.

Would the Brotherhood stand idly by while the smallfolk were punished for their King’s mistake? No. Their purpose would not be forgotten.

They would move to protect, even if that meant standing against the Starks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the chapter follows the Let's Play. This chapter was just the set up for the troop movement. The time stamp for when they wind up in position is 4:34.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=18&v=iCeHbhOdGy8&feature=emb_logo


	10. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Cramped and uncomfortable, Kevan took his place on the bench, patiently sitting and waiting for the sermon to start. The son of a humble blacksmith, Kevan had grown up on the Street of Steel in King’s Landing and had gone to the Sept there for nearly all his life.

Never in his years had the Sept been this busy, however.

It didn’t surprise him. Men who were about to die had plenty to pray for.

Some, Kevan assumed, were taking this as a last chance to seek absolution before they were sent to meet the Gods. Other, more optimistic sorts, prayed for glory, for victory and riches. The humbler worshippers might pray for earthlier things. For the maiden to watch over their daughters and wives if the city fell, they might pray that the stranger does not take their sons this night.

What did it say then that Kevan couldn’t pray for anything?

The last few weeks had been trying. With war breaking out and the possibility that the capital itself would come under siege looking ever more likely, the Gold Cloaks had been drilled relentlessly as they made the transition from a policing force to a makeshift army. Consequently, Kevan had been working longer hours, and getting less sleep, all the while watching in dread as unseen threats circled.

Would it be the Ironborn reavers that they would be fighting or the champions of the Red God under Stannis? Would it be the Young Wolf’s army of Northern savages or something else entirely?

The worst part of the war, for Kevan at least, was the uncertainty. The feeling of being surrounded and not knowing where the next attack would come from, or even if there would be an attack at all. As the stress mounted, Kevan almost wished that something would finally happen just so he could have an answer, one way or the other.

Last week he had come to the Sept too. He hadn’t known what to pray for then either.

This week he had his answer. He should have prayed to the mother to stay the arrows so he might live to see another day.

He was shaken from his morose thoughts as Septon Animar made his way through the center aisle to the podium in slow, feeble steps. The Septon was an old man, having served in his role since Kevan was just a child and his age showed.

Despite this, the crowd held their silence out of respect for the good minute that it took until the Septon reached his destination. Upon turning, Animar turned around to look out at the worshippers with faded blue eyes, and uttered, “many of you, I have never seen before. You profess faith, and yet have never seen it fit to visit the house of the Gods. Why not?”

The crowd stirred, but none answered the Septon’s question. Kevan wondered dimly whether they held their silence out of shame, respect, or something else entirely.

Before he could wonder about it too much, Animar spoke once more. “I don’t know why you haven’t come before know, but I can guess as to why you are here today.” A pause as he surveyed the crowd once more. “The dreadful news has broken that the craven infidel, the would-be usurper, kin-slayer, and kingslayer, Stannis Baratheon has started making his way to the capital and will be here by nightfall.”

Kevan was impressed despite himself. Not many would be as comfortable as Septon Animar was with denouncing Stannis with his army so close. If the capital were to fall, Stannis would be coming after his detractors, and given his conversion to the faith of the Red God, there was a non-zero chance that they would be burned alive. Most Septons would have chosen to hedge their bets at a moment like this, but Animar had instead chosen to double-down.

If nothing else, the old man had always been consistent.

“And now you fear. Some of you fear for yourselves and others for your families. You fear what will happen to them should Stannis take the city. You fear that he will have your wives and daughters raped. You fear that he will have your sons and brothers burnt in offering to his false god. And you are right to fear that he will do those things, for he will.

“Stannis Baratheon is a craven infidel who has betrayed the memories of his ancestors, the long line of loyal Andals before him and embraced the ways of foreigners. Stannis Baratheon is a craven infidel who claimed his nephews’ throne before his royal brothers’ body was cold. Stannis Baratheon is a craven infidel who seeks to usurp the throne by attacking a city filled with women in children as opposed to facing an army on an open battlefield.”

Animar placed his hands on the podium, both to steady himself and to push himself to his full height before speaking. “And here you stand, my loyal Andals.” The sarcasm on the word ‘loyal’ was difficult to miss.

“Driven to worship by the fear of a craven infidel where the fear of the Gods had no sway. I think you fear the wrong thing. We are on this planet for a short time. I have been exceptionally blessed have reached seventy-six name days. Most men are not so fortunate.

“A good deal of you will be dead before you reach forty, either from an ailment, battle or something else. Some will live longer, some shorter, but in the end, all that is born must die and we will face the Gods to be tried. Those of us who have done good deeds will be lifted to the seven heavens while those of us who have committed mortal sins will be cast down to the seven hells, as is right.

“From that, we must ask, what good is the mortal body? It is a temporary tool built to fail, so what use is fearing for its safety? It is the soul one needs to be concerned about, and it is on the matter of the soul that you have come here today.”

A humorless laugh was followed by, “In the Seven-Pointed-Star, it is written that it is never too late to turn to the path of the Gods and ask for absolution. If one sincerely asks for forgiveness, it will be granted, and the soul will be permitted to enter heaven. Tell me, do you think the Gods fools?”

A startled silence filled the Sept. Whatever they had been expecting for the sermon, this wasn’t it.

“You spend years without having visited a Sept, and then a crisis appears and suddenly, you come in droves. The minute Stannis is defeated, you’ll disappear once more like the morning mist only to return when the next crisis is at hand.

“Do you think the gods won’t realize the source of your ‘faith?’ Forgiveness is only granted to those who sincerely beg for it. This fear, this isn’t enough. You come to me for absolution in what may be your final hour. To that, I say absolution isn’t granted. It is earned.

“To those of you who have spent their lives committing mortal sins, I offer you this once chance to cleanse your soul. Fight. Fight without fear for your lives. Rise against the cruel tyranny of the false-god and his false army. See them cast down and in exchange, you will be raised.

“Do your duty to the gods. Do your duty to the king and the country for which it stands, and know that in the end, we will be victorious, for it is the will of the Gods.”

At the Septon’s exhortation, the crowd responded.

That day, no hymns were sung to the mother for mercy, no songs to the father for justice. The only chants were deafening cries of “The Gods Will It!” That day, not a man knelt at the feet of any God other than the warrior. The line grew so that it spilled out to the street beyond and then even longer as more men heard the commotion and joined in.

The people of King’s Landing would defend their city, their faith, and their king.

Among the noise, the prayers, and the ceremony, Kevan held his silence.  
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
Adrien Waters, bastard of the Lord of Duskendale, paced the lines of the courtyard, nervous energy haunting his steps, as his heart thundered in his ears, an excited smile painted on his face.

Here. Stannis is almost here. He couldn’t wait.

At twenty-one, the bastard of Duskendale was a full-fledged knight, and with that position, he had reached the limit of what he could amount to. As a bastard, he had little else to look forward to. He stood to inherit no lands, and no lady would have him without a trueborn name of his own.

Instead, Adrien spent his days honing his skills of warcraft, waiting impatiently for the peace to finally end. The truest Andal’s proved themselves on the field of war, after all.

It was on the field of battle that men became legends. It wasn’t in the practice yard that the myth of Barristan the Bold was forged; it was by striking down Maelys the Monstrous. The Blackfish won his spurs in the War of the Ninepenny Kings as well, the Robert I Baratheon became the Demon of the Trident by killing Rhaegar, and so on.

It was through glorious bloodletting that one proved their worth before the Gods. It was through slaughtering the armies of Stannis that Adrien would finally amount to something. With every kill, his legend would shine a bit brighter. With every victory, he would gain more glory.

Perhaps one day, he would even be made a lord. A sort of giddy euphoria came over him at the thought.

At first, he had been frustrated that his vows to the Gold Cloaks had kept him from his crusade in the North, but now he was glad for it. He wouldn’t miss this battle for the world.

Now if only Stannis could stop being a cockblock and land already, he thought to himself grumpily. At the rate, the battle was going, there was a non-zero chance that the heathen would bumble his way into a watery grave without Adrien doing anything.

From what little he could see and hear from his position by the gate, the battle was going unfortunately well for them. The Blackwater Bay gave way to the blackwater rush, a far narrower pass. By necessity, Stannis had to cramp his ships together, forming eight battle lines with twenty ships in each.

Under normal circumstances, ships were difficult to hit with siege weapons. Catapults and trebuchets were difficult to aim at the best of time and trying to hit a fast-moving target was considered a lost cause.

In this case, however, the ships were close together with little space to maneuver. In the narrow pass of the Rush, the ships were so close together that most crews manning the artillery didn’t bother aiming at any one ship. Instead, they focused on the center and launched their ammunition in the general direction. With so many ships, close together, it was difficult to miss. The artillery was almost guaranteed to hit something.

Stannis had probably intended to rush the fleet through, relying on speed. It might have worked if he had managed to take the city completely by surprise, as he intended.

Instead, he had to deal with the twenty-two galleys that the royal navy had. Under normal circumstances, the navy would be of no issue. Twenty-two was quite a bit less than two hundred, after all.

In this case, however, the river was narrow enough that only ten ships could engage at a time, mitigating Stannis’ advantage in numbers, keeping him from overrunning the bedraggled Royal Navy. Further, the Royal Navy wasn’t aiming to win the battle outright. Instead, they had withdrawn slowly to the Mud Gate, roughly the center of the defensive battle lines, before turning to fight.

With the entirety of the traitor navy exposed and their advance halted, they were taking the maximum amount of damage possible from the hundreds of catapults and trebuchets lining the walls of the capital. With every second the Royal Navy held their ground was another opportunity for Stannis’ ships to be sunk.

If his ships ever did make landfall, they would be deploying tired, demoralized troops on the shoreline. Ones with no real loyalty to Stannis. Adrien predicted they would break quickly.

The loyal forces would win the day. Adrien hoped that he at least got a chance to fight before they prevailed.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
It’s not enough, Kevan thought with dread, staring down at the battlefield from his position on the walls.

“Reload faster,” Commander Jocelyn Ironhand berated his, causing Kevan to tear his eyes away from the battlefield as he rushed to move the latest rock that they were going to be using, working in concert with the seventeen other members of the crew. The battle had been raging for less than an hour and it had become quite clear that their efforts weren’t enough.

The trebuchets reloaded too slowly. To wreck a ship, the size of a war galley, small rocks wouldn’t do, so they had to go with larger ones, varying in weight between two hundred to three-hundred pounds. Even with an elaborate system of trolleys and over a dozen men assigned to each siege weapon, it wasn’t enough.

The work was slow and tedious, and Stannis was still advancing.

If the royal navy would just do their jobs- but that wasn’t fair, was it? They were outnumbered ten to one, and each of Stannis’s galleys was manned by experienced sailors from the narrow sea. Compared to that, the Royal Navy was positively green.

Still, they did their jobs admirably. Inspiringly even.

Hopelessly outnumbered, they held their ground. Hopelessly outnumber, they died at their post.

Kevan’s breath came in short gasps, his back and shoulders burned as he pushed the next boulder into place. The men manning it, nearly fresh civilian volunteers who had come forth in the past few hours, cut the cord sending the cargo flying.

It was with relief that he watched the rock fly, arcing beautifully in the night sky before landing with a crash right on top of one of Stannis’s ships. With a twang of pity, Kevan imagined the fate of the sailors aboard the vessel. They would be dragged down into the bottom of the Blackwater and die a horrible death, freezing and drowning in the waters of the bay, and for what?

Still, the pity didn’t last long. The relief was more prevalent. Unlike his fellow siege crew, Kevan was a member of the Gold Cloaks, and once the usurper's forces landed, he would be expected to rush down to join a second or third sallying force, something likely to get him killed.

Under his breath, Kevan managed a wheezed prayer. “Please Gods,” he murmured. “Let them hold just a while longer.”

And the navy did. And then it didn’t. It was the fall of the iconic flagship of the Royal Navy, King Robert’s Hammer, that caused it. Commissioned by King Robert I Baratheon after the fall of Dragonstone as the flagship of the new Baratheon navy, the ship was the largest and most powerful of the royal navy.

Intellectually, the sailors must have known that they were outnumbered, but from their vantage point, they could only see so far. They saw a row of ten ships on the other side facing them, they had a row of ten ships on their side. Without being able to see how deep the enemy column ran, it must have seemed like a fair fight.

That changed when King Robert’s Hammer sunk, taking with it its crews and the admiral of the Royal Navy.

Up till this point, a total of eleven ships out of the original twenty-two had been sunk, halving the navy. Once the flagship had been destroyed, the demoralized Royal Navy broke and began to flee. The usurper’s navy pursued until they reached the King’s Gate, where they gave up the pursuit and instead docked to land the first of their troops onto the beachhead.

The Royal Navy, on the other hand, disappeared into the distance. Perhaps they would return when the battle was over. Perhaps they wouldn’t. Either way, the enemy was here.

As he watched it happen from his vantage points on the walls, Kevans heart sank. It wasn’t enough. What he had been dreading this entire battle had come to pass.

As he expected, Commander Ironhand patted him on the shoulder. “Head to the courtyard,” he needed to shout to be heard over the din of battle. Turning to the siege crew Ironhand shouted, “the rest of you, keep on working. The more ships we can stop from landing troops, the better.”  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Adrien chanted the word repeatedly in his mind, heart beating with excitement, a maniacal grin stretched over his face. At long last, his time to shine.

He was sitting atop a black destrier, lance in one hand, sword strapped to his side. King’s Landing wasn’t known for its horses at the best of time, and it showed. To make matters worse, most of the good warhorse, the destriers, and coursers, had been sent off with that useless old fool Crakehall.

The cavalry forces of King’s Landing had less than fifty horses left, most of them rouncey’s or non-charger mongrels that were untrained in warfare and were likely to spook. Briefly, Adrian wondered what command was thinking when they brought palfreys in to serve as war horses.

This number was bolstered by knights who were loitering in the capital, most of whom had their private horses. The destrier Adrien was riding now was his private horse. It was a gift from his lord father for earning his knighthood.

Shaking off the thought, Adrian tightened his grip on Swift, the gift his lord father gave him once he became a knight and waited for the creaking gates to fully open, and the second it did, the horn blew and half the cavalry was off, Adrien at the helm.

He wanted to be the first of the Andals to be in the fight. He wanted the glory of the first kill.

The troops of Stannis, the first to have landed in the shadow of the walls of the capital, wavered. Fifty yards, thirty, twenty. Adrien could see them start to break, and they hadn’t even reached them yet.

Disoriented and unsteady from the long sea voyage and facing down roughly four-hundred pounds of steel, only a few tried to form a proper defense, but with the craven wavering of their compatriots, they failed. Instead, Adrien smashed in, followed shortly by his slower compatriot.

His first victim was a craven who had been attempting to run, not very quickly, away from the battle. Adrien’s lance found a weak spot in between his helmet and the armor covering his back, sinking into his neck with no resistance with no trouble, where it remained. A memento of Adrian’s glorious deed.

Letting out a disbelieving laugh, glee mixed in with an emotion he couldn’t quite identify, Adrien saved the milestone of his first kill as well as he could. He knew he would cherish this moment until he died.

Nonetheless, he couldn’t bask in the glory for too long. More traitors needed to die.

Drawing his sword, he started hacking away at his targets, darting from one enemy to the next in the chaotic melee, feeling more alive than ever before. His mind was clear, free from stress and worries of what the future would bring; all his instincts were focused on this deadly dance he was performing.

His eyes saw more, focusing on details and flitting between them rapidly. Amidst the smoke and smog, he saw more than he ever did before.

His ears heard more, the chaotic din of battle turning into the sweetest of melodies. Amidst the cries of rage and loss and the wails of the dying, Adrien heard more than he ever did before.

Surrounded by death, Adrien realized just how joyful and vivid life could be.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
Kevan trembled atop his palfrey, his lance drooping slightly as his muscles ached. Kevan wished that he could say the trembling of his limbs was solely to exhaustion, but he knew terror played a greater role than exhaustion ever could. And who could blame him?

He knew the wails of the dead would haunt him for years to come.

The horn blew. A signal for the first group of knights to return, and for the second group to head out. Cycle charging, as the commander called it. The greatest strength of heavy cavalry was in its initial charge. Hundreds of pounds of steel smashing into a line could do tremendous amounts of damage, especially if the troops were already disorganized.

Once heavy cavalry got stuck in, however, the initial shock capabilities were lost. The solution that Commander Ironhand presented was for them to charge the enemy in rotation. The first group charged in first and stuck in their lances before retreating while the second group charged out. While the second group fought, the first group would be rearmed with spare lances. Upon another blast, the second group would return, and the first group would charge out again.

Belatedly, Kevan realized that he was supposed to be part of the second group and his signal had rung seconds ago. His group was already moving out and atop horseback, even a few seconds could mean a dozen paces, and Kevan was falling behind.

Hastily spurring his palfrey onwards, Kevan hurried onwards. There was safety in numbers.

Ahead of him, the group let out mighty war cries, ranging from “God Wills It,” to “Ours Is Fury.” Kevan joined in with a mighty scream, though he didn’t scream anything intelligible. Just a wash of noise meant to disguise his terror.

Underneath him, his horse buckled. A palfrey wasn’t a warhorse, trained to handle the noise and visuals of a battlefield. All the cries and the screams frightened him. For a brief second, Kevan felt a kinship with the beast, one he didn’t feel with his fellow soldiers.

The second passed.

He only had to strike once, stick the lance into someone, before he could retreat and pretend that it was to pick up another one (he ignored the voice saying that he would have to charge out again once the first group was done). They both might get home safe and sound after all.

But who to attack? So many men were fleeing in utter chaos.

Surely, he reasoned, they were of no threat to anyone. Most of them were Andals who were misguided by Renly sword-swallower and Stannis the heretic. If they fled today, they would contribute no more to this campaign. One the war ended; they could live on as loyal subjects of the crown.

Instead, Kevan looked to the men still fighting, those that hadn’t yet fled. The problem was, they terrified him.

And yet he had to charge at something. Anything. If he hadn’t lost his lance by the time the horn blew, all would know him to be craven.

It wasn’t bravery that spurred his horse forward, nor was it newfound resolve. It was with a mixture of panic and fear that he went forward.  
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Over and over, the cavalry cycle charged the opposing enemy infantry unopposed. The chaotic engagement on the seas had succeeded in scrambling Stannis’s forces. Ships with commanders, horses, and infantry had been sunk, leaving their ability to respond compromised.

Each battle line of Stannis’s fleet had consisted of a decent split of heavy and light cavalry, as well as the respective commanders of their forces. The light cavalry was meant to prevent this from happening, serving to screen the infantry while they got into position.

Instead, as ships sunk and others had to move forward to take their place to engage the Royal Navy, this unit cohesion was lost, and as multiple commanders gathered in a single line, so was the clarity of the chain of command. Instead of a single army fighting in orderly lines with each line being commanded by a commander, the first line had four commanders issuing contradicting orders while the next four lines had no commander at all.

Even worse, as the infantry piled on the beachhead, unable to advance thanks to the cavalry, while Stannis’s cavalry couldn’t disembark without space being freed up.

Eventually, attrition played its part, roughly twelve cycles later and roughly a thousand enemy casualties later. In every charge, a few cavalry forces sworn to the crown failed to return. The horses and the knights were both well-armored enough that crossbows were less than effective, but in every volley, at least a few arrows were bound to find a weak spot. When Joffrey’s cavalry amounted to a hundred, even a single loss was too many.

Once Ironhand saw that the enemy was forming solid battle lines, rather than risk the cavalry, he pulled them back entirely. Even after all the damage they had managed to do via siege weapons and cavalry, the crown infantry was still less well equipped and less well trained than those of Stannis, and hopelessly outnumbered as well.

The royal navy had done well while outnumbered, but they were fighting in a chokepoint while supported by friendly artillery. If Ironhand sent the infantry out for a sally, then he would be risking them on the open field and neutralizing his artillery besides. He could hardly fire a trebuchet into a crowd with his troops engaged, after all.

Instead, he hung back. The artillery went silent as the siege crews reloaded and waited for the trumpet blare that would signal the second round of firing. Ironhand didn’t order the engagement, holding his peace. The enemy was forming out of range and the defenders didn’t have the ammunition to waste.

He intended to greet Stannis’s expected charge with a hail of withering fire as every siege engine in the capital fired at once. But the charge never came.

Instead, Stannis was retreating further away from the walls towards a nearby hill, defeating the point of landing beneath them in the first place.

Was he giving up? Ironhand didn’t dare to hope.

Turning to a nearby aide, he barked out his orders. Pointing in the direction of Stannis’s army with his hooked hand, he barked, “Put together a small group of scouts and tell them to go find out what Stannis is doing.”

The unnamed aide stammered something inconsequential in reply and ran off to do just that.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
The report came in less than an hour later, before spreading amongst the garrison, much to their collective joy and amusement. Stannis had decided that storming the city wasn’t going to work and had instead decided to try his hand at a prolonged siege.

The scouts couldn’t get a good look, they didn’t dare linger for long, but from what they had seen, the enemy was forming up camp atop their little hill. The scouts reported schematics for siege tower, shovels for siege lines, and axes for felling trees. The writing on the wall was clear.

The enemy intended to siege the city.

Unless they could somehow starve the city in the nine days it would take for the Tyrells to get here Ironhand didn’t think he had a problem.

With no small feeling of relief did Ironhand retire for the night with orders to wake him if the situation changed.  
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The next time Ironhand would wake, it would be with the horrifying sensation of a dagger piercing his throat while his mouth filled with blood. It would be the last time he would wake, and he wouldn’t be alone in that fate.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter One

Darren walked through the streets of King’s Landing at a meandering pace. His nostrils filled with the smell of excrement and garbage, rotting under the morning sun. It wasn’t the smell that irritated him though; he considered that to be normal. It was the noise. It was that song.

The bards had been playing it more and more frequently lately and Darren couldn’t say he enjoyed it. It was clear some did, however. A crowd had formed, chanting the chorus with the bard.

My daddy was a miner  
And I'm a miner's son  
And I'll stick with the king  
'Til every battle's won

It was from the Westerlands, or so Darren had heard. Royalist sentiments ran deep there. The king was the grandson of their lord, after all.

Here in the capital things were more divided. It wasn’t too long ago that the Royalists had been rebelling themselves. It hadn’t been so long ago that the Lannister’s had sacked King’s Landing.

Darren was too young to remember it- he had been four at the time. Not everyone was so young, however. Some had very clear memories of the event. Of the rapes, of the killings and the horrid flames. Now, the same army that once sacked the city was charged with defending it. For many, this brought forth a jumbled mix of emotions.

Perhaps that was why the bards insisted on playing the song so often.

Turning, Darren tried to catch a glimpse of the bard- trying to see if he had blonde hair. Trying to see if he was from the Westerlands. Darren couldn’t see anything- the crowd was too thick.

For a moment, he considered turning around and going back in, but then he decided not to. It wouldn’t be worth the effort. It was as likely as not that the bard didn’t have any grand plan and was just doing it for the coin. The song was catchy. Irritating, but catchy.

Besides, Darren was already running late. As an apprentice blacksmith, his hours weren’t his own. He learned what his master ordered when he ordered it.

Master Preytan Garner was a predictable man, however. The best time to work the forge was at night and early morning, when it was cooler. Consequently, Preytan routinely gave Darren a break slightly after noon so that he could rest and get lunch, before coming back for his evening shift.

Today, that didn’t happen. The King had placed a few hundred rush orders for assortments of pikes, crossbows, arrows, and armor. Every blacksmith on the street of steel was working overtime, day, and night, to meet the demand. Preytan, and by extension Darren, was no exception.

He’d had to toil for nearly an extra hour before Preytan let up on him. Now, he was sweaty and tired. Even worse, he had arranged to meet a few friends at the pub and was running drastically late. Darren hoped they hadn’t left already.

Seeing the bar in front of him, Darren sped up slightly. As much as he could in the narrow, packed streets of the capital. Normally, it would be impossible to make any sort of headway, but Darren was a blacksmith and had the bulk to show for it. He also wasn’t too shy to shunt people to the side. A mutter of ‘sorry’ and ‘excuse me’ rang out as he weaseled his way past before slipping into the bar.

The interior reeked of spilled ale and piss. Two smells that Darren was very used to. Most places he ate at smelled like that.

Darren looked around for his friends, eyes straining slightly in the relatively dark interior. There were only three windows letting light into the front of the bar. The rest of the pub was left in a stale gloom, just as his friends preferred. It was why they always sat at the back. He spotted them easily enough; Adrien and Ormund. It was Adrien’s fault- his golden hair was eye-catching.

Darren sauntered over and- before anyone could ask why he was late- offered Adrien a cocky grin. “How ya doin’ bastard?” Darren then proceeded to plop himself down into a vacant seat. He raised one of his feet on the table and pushed, tilting himself back, before raising an eyebrow at Adrien as though to say ‘Yeah, I called you a bastard. What are you going to do about it?’

Adrien offered him a tight smile. Not offended but more tired. Better than how he had reacted when he first got here. “There is more than one thing to joke about, you know?”

“Our humblest apologies your lordship,” Ormund chimed in from his position slumped against the wall. In his hands were a nearly full mug of ale. Ormund wasn’t a heavy drinker at the best of times but he didn’t like not having a drink around. Mostly because the other men would mock him for it.

As a workaround, he kept a mug of ale at hand during mealtimes. He would drink some of it, but the rest he would get rid of in creative ways. Darren had caught him in the act once or twice but didn’t bring it up. The last time he had taunted Ormund, he had burst into tears- something Darren still felt guilty about. No fun to tease someone like that. Adrien was much better. No tears, just anger.

Still, this time Adrien decided to spoil the fun. Instead of coming at him with fists, he came at Darren with words. “At least I know my mother, can you say the same?”

“I’m pretty sure half the city knows your mother, kid. As for me, I got to know her very well last night.” Ormund burst into laughter while Darren let a triumphant grin stretch across his face. Adrien raised his mug and dipped his head to concede the round to him, before knocking back a drink.

When the laughter died down, Ormund looked at Adrien curiously. “Why are you taking this so well mate? Normally you’d be coming at Darren with fists by now.”

“Just-” Adrien trailed off. His eyes drifted to the side before refocusing. “Just tired, I suppose. I have had a lot on my mind recently.”

“Like what?” Ormund asked. Darren thought about cutting in with a joke but by the time he thought of one, Adrien was already replying. “Have you been paying attention to the war?”

“Course we have.” Meanwhile, Darren let out a hearty “Nope.”

Ormund looked incredulous. “Whatcha mean ‘nope?’ We live in the capital- all the armies are heading here. If the capital is gonna be sacked ‘gain, don’t ya think ya ought to know?’

“And do what?” Darren asked. “Clean out my ass so the raper can have a better time fucking me? Way I see it, there ain’t nothing we can do. Capital stands, it stands. Capital falls, it falls. Worrying about it ain’t gonna change nothing.”

“We can leave,” Ormund countered. “If we get enough warning, I mean. The guards will let us out, right? Less mouths to feed and everything.”

“And go where?” Darren countered. “All my stuff is here. My house, my forge, my job. I leave, I’ll have to leave those behind. I don’t have much money. Life ain’t kind to a homeless peasant wandering the countryside.”

“I’m joining the army.” A pregnant pause ensued. After a moment, Adrien broke it lamely. “Just- just thought you should know.”

Darren and Ormund looked at him for a moment in varying degrees of surprise. “Aren’t the Lannister’s losing every fight in the Riverlands?” Ormunds voice was careful, deliberate, as he asked the question. He was trying to wrap his mind around what Adrien was thinking.

Grudgingly, Adrien nodded. Darren wasn’t nearly as considerate as Ormund. “If you want to kill yourself, I’m willin’ to help. No need to join the army to do it mate.”

“Are you happy?”

The non-sequitur threw them for a loop. While Ormund tried to connect the question to the conversation that they had been having, Darren plowed on through. “And you think joinin’ the army is gonna make you happy? Hate to break it ya’ mate, but the war ain’t a tourney. You’re going to have a lot less fun charging at another man with a pointy stick when there ain’t a pretty maiden there to swoon over you.”

“What wonderful insight, Lord Darren.” The condescension was thick, coating every syllable that Adrien uttered. “It’s not like I grew up in a castle surrounded by the knights sworn to my father, the Lord of Sow’s Horn. It’s not like I ever asked them what war was like- you know, men who fought in a war. As opposed to you, who is merely echoing what he heard in the mouths of drunks and cravens.”

Darren opened his mouth to retaliate, but Ormund physically stopped his from speaking. He brought his left palm up to Darren’s mouth just as Darren started to speak, muffling the words, and drawing the attention of both his compatriots. Darren shoved his hand off and glared, confused.

Warningly, Ormund shook his head. “Adrien’s in a bad mood. Don’t rile him up.” And then seeing that Darren was getting increasingly irritated, Ormund turned to Adrien. A way to signal the conversation was over- to signal control where he had none. A way to run away from a man twice his size and built like a bull without running away. “Why do you think joining the army is going to make you happy?”

Adrien opened his mouth and closed it again. He repeated the cycle once more. Ormund waited patiently and Darren not so patiently. Darren looked back and forth between them, trying to read the mood. Should he say something?

Before he could decide, Adrien found somewhere to start. “My father, the Lord of Sow’s Horn, had no sons besides me for the longest time. Daughter either, come to think of it. He had me when he was a young man- back when he was six-and-ten. Before his riding accident. It left him with trouble,” Adrien searched for a delicate way to conclude his sentence. He settled on “copulating.”

For all his trouble, he ought not to have bothered. Darren burst out laughing anyway. “You mean the Lord of Sow’s Horn can’t get his ‘horn’ to work?” Both Adrien and Ormund glared at him to no avail. Darren laughed right on.

When he trailed off thirty-seconds later, Adrien asked through gritted teeth, “Are you done?”

“Can’t get his horn to work,” Darren chuckled before waving to Adrien to carry on. Adrien didn’t look happy but didn’t walk away. Nor was he in the mood to give the long-winded version of events anymore. “I’m a bastard, but because my father had trouble siring proper heirs, he defaulted to me. It was either that or letting his house go extinct.

“He had me trained since I was four to fight with sword and spear. He had me knighted at age ten-and-seven when I won my first tourney. He gave me a fine set of armor to celebrate after it- armor fit for the heir to a rich Lord. I was supposed to be his heir. And then he got married to that wanton cunt, sired his insipid little brat, and exiled me here.”

“I wouldn’t say that being sent to the capital is the same thing as being exiled to the Red Wastes.”

Adrien let out a bitter laugh. “I live in a hole in the ground. I used to live in a castle and now I live in a hole in the ground. I used to eat fine meals prepared in the kitchens, now I’m fairly certain that I’ve just eaten a murder victim,” Adrien gestured angrily to the bowl of brown before them.

“You’re exaggerating,” Darren said, rolling his eyes. “You’re da’ sent you here with plenty o’ money. You live in one of the nicer inns and eat plenty o’ good food.”

“Because my brother might not live. Many infants don’t make it- and if the gods are kind, then he’ll be one of them.”

Ormund looked appalled. “You can’t mean that. He’s a baby. It wasn’t his fault that he was born to your father.”

“Fault or no, that baby is stealing my inheritance. He might die yet, but if he doesn’t- tell me, have you heard of the Blackfyre rebellions?” Without waiting for either of them to respond, he continued, “The Blackfyre rebellions were started by the favored son of Aegon the Unworthy- Daemon Blackfyre. Daemon was Aegon’s favored son- favored far over his other son, Daeron the Good. Daemon got everything that he needed to legitimize his claim, including the Valyrian sword Blackfyre, the sword of the Conqueror himself. When he rebelled, half the realm answered his call and all the realm bled. The moral of the tale, when read to trueborn sons, is simple. Never trust your bastard siblings for they might try to steal your inheritance.”

Adrien took a deep swing of his ale. “I will never see my home again. I am my father’s eldest son and an anointed knight. My claim is too great and too legitimate for anyone to risk. As soon as my brother reaches five name days, my family will cut me off and leave me here to die far from them.”

“He might still die. He is two now. A lot can happen in three years.” The words felt odd to say. Ormund never imagined that there would be a day where he would be comforting a friend by wishing for the death of his baby brother.

Adrien didn’t reply at first, instead he watched the ripples on the amber liquid in his cups. Then softly, so softly that it strained the ear to hear, he whispered, “It is already too late.”

Darren and Ormund looked at one another, silently asking who should speak. Darren leaned away to make it clear that it shouldn’t be him- he felt bad for his friend of two years, but he wasn’t good at this touchy-feely crap. If he spoke, he’d try to lighten the mood. In this scenario, it would just make the situation worse.

Ormund expected as much and decided to write off Darren for the rest of this conversation- at least until the sensitive bits were over. He turned back to Adrien and said, “It’s never too late.” A meaningless platitude, but it was all he could offer unless Adrien gave him more to work with.

Adrien complied with the prying. Silently, he shook his head. “It is too late. Did I ever tell you about Talla?”

Ormund tried to think back, cycling through conversations, looking for that name. It was Darren that answered though. “You didn’t. I’d remember if you mentioned a pretty lass.”

“She was,” Adrien replied. “Pretty, I mean. Her full name is Talla Byrch. She’s the sister to Lord Devan of Byrch Hall.” Another swing. “You know, I remember this one time- I think we were twelve then- that someone tried to pick on a servant in front of her. It was a boy, three years older than her. I think it was the son of some landed knight or another. Either way, she walked right up to him and smacked him so hard his cheeks positively glowed red. He got angry at her- I don’t think he knew that she was a noble lady- and was going to hit her back and so I intervened. It made me feel like a knight, defending a lady’s honor.

“We talked after that and struck up a friendship. We grew older and friendship turned to love. This was back when I still had an inheritance- one befitting a lady. Byrch Hall and Sow’s Hall are right next to each other. It would have been a good alliance. We were to get married.”

Ormund put the pieces together. “She got married.” It wasn’t a question.

Adrien nodded anyway. He still hadn’t looked up from his drink. “To Florian Buckwell, Heir to the Antlers.” He swished his ale around his cup, watching it move. “I suppose it’s a good alliance. Florian’s father, Morgan, has two-thousand soldiers but is right on the border to the Riverlands- right next to Maidenpool and Darry. The thousand extra soldiers from Byrch Hall might save a lot of lives.”

“But you’re not happy.” This wasn’t a question either.

Once more, Adrien replied anyway. “But I’m not happy. You know, I’ve spent the last two years trying to pretend it wasn’t real. That I wasn’t losing my inheritance. I kept telling myself that my brother would die any day now and I’d be allowed to go home. I told myself everything would be like I left it, with the cracked step leading to the kitchen and stubborn old Lothar in the training yard.

“I’m starting to realize that even if I do return, nothing will be the same. The world has continued without me, whether I like it or not. There is nothing left for me there. And that’s if I get to go back. More likely than not, my brother will live and enjoy my inheritance by right of coming out of the right cunt.”

The notes carried a tone of finality to them, one that Ormund couldn’t argue with. Instead, he changed tracts. “How does this lead to you joining the army?”

“I’m not getting Sow’s Horn, I’m not getting the accompanying lands, and I’m not getting Talla,” Adrien replied, his voice shifting slightly, going from bleak depression to a bleak sort of resolve. “But I am determined to get a castle, some lands, and a beautiful wife. Luckily, I happen to be a knight and the King desperately needs those. I hear Stark killed all the others under his employ.”

“Yeah,” Ormund agreed. “Stark killed all the others. Do you really want to go against those odds?”

Adrien finally looked up. The blue eyes were from with a bloodshot red- how had they missed it before? When he spoke both Darren and Ormund could pick up the silent resolve in his voice. “That will make it even more impressive when I cut the false-king’s head off and present it to King Joffrey. He’ll have to reward my services. He has to.”

No one spoke for a few seconds and then Darren, in the softest voice he used in years, spoke. “Mate, the girl ain’t worth it. You say you want a reward, but this sounds like glorified suicide to me. Stay here. You’re a good man with good skills. You can find a humble living and get married to a nice girl right here. I know a few- I’d be happy to introduce you.”

“And leave my children- the family I want to start- with what? Just take a walk down the street and look around. Starving, emancipated children everywhere. They’re like skeletons with a thin film of skin stretched over them. Walking corpses with no futures.

“I bring them into the world and tell them what? That they are peasants and not lords because their father was a craven? That my sword remained sheathed because I was too afraid to fight- to risk my life to defend them and their birthright? Can such a report be glorious in the eyes of Gods and men?

“No. All who live must die, but I won’t do so with a whimper. If the stranger is going to take me, it will be with a sword in my hand. It will be as I try to claw my way back to the glory and honor that I have lost. And I want you to come with me.”

“Come again?” Ormund asked, his eyebrows raised. “We’re trying to talk you out of going to war. What makes you think we want to go?”

“Aye, if you stay here you may live. Assuming the city isn’t sacked of course. You may even live till your eighty, but you will die eventually. Think hard on what you are going to leave them.”

Ormund look at him for a moment. And then he spoke, his voice noticeably colder. “I already have a family. A mother and two sisters who need to be fed and clothed. I can’t feed them if I get myself killed gallivanting in the Riverlands.”  
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Notes: Hello, I'm still alive. I haven't gotten the Covid-19 yet, and I'm not dead. Being stuck in my house imitating a pile of laundry did put me in a bit of a slump however, but now that we're allowed to go back outside (in New York at least), I'm getting back into it. While I was in my slump, I didn't do anything besides lounge around and watch T.V./Youtube videos. The Youtube video watching was at least semi-productive, in my defense. Two very good channels I discovered were Atun-Shei films and ShaelinWrites.

Let's start with Atun-Shei. In his video's criticizing Ron Maxwell (the director of Gettysburg and 'Gods and Generals), Atun makes the point that the reason Maxwell's films suck because he puts history over story to a ludicrous degree. In the case of Gettysburg, he suggests that the film would be far better if Maxwell focused the lens more. Perhaps following a single battalion of soldiers and their struggle to survive the carnage. Maxwell tries to do to much, and in so doing, he makes it very hard to be fond of any of the characters. They all feel like distant figures. Consequently when one dies, we're left feeling like 'and who was that again?'

I did the same thing, only my history was fictional so it was only a quarter as useful as Maxwell's was. I stuck to game events too closely, even at the expense of narrative needs. It ended with some threads not leading anywhere (the one about reaching out to the Lord of Grandview for instance) and that made this story worse, in my opinion. So I'm redoing it and focusing the lens. 'All Quiet on the Western Front' should give you an idea of what I'm trying to do.

There are going to be five main characters. Three on the ground level which should give you a tactical view on the war (Adrien, Ormund, and Darren), one on the operational level (Marshall Burton Crakehall), and one on the strategic level (King Joffrey the SI-OC).

As to the second YouTube channel I've been watching a lot of, ShaelinWrites, it's a writing YouTube channel. You might have guessed by the name. In addition to helping me with clarity and prose, watching the video's have been helping me with pacing and plot. There is a particular video that introduced me to the 15 beat plot structure. This article will explain it better than I can: How to Outline Your Novel with the Save the Cat! Beat Sheet

Basically, I'm going to try to follow that formula to keep my story tight and compact. This chapter, for instance, is supposed to contain the 'Opening Image' which includes a pub on the poor side of town (smells of ale and piss) which should hint at the characters financial status's and of wartime propaganda (the miner song). Then I stated the theme (family) which I'm going to be developing. I don't think my previous version even had a theme. The next chapter is going to be the set-up (Joffrey talking to Burton). The chapter after that is going to switch back to our peasant protags and give Ormund a catalyst. And so forth.

To do this, however, I need to know how the story is going to end and to do that, I need to finish my let's play series. I'm leaving the first video of it below. I'm going to be starting to record new episodes tomorrow and uploading one daily for the next week. The reason this chapter is a draft and I'm not opening a new thread yet is because I might need to make changes according to both the events of the video and the feedback I get from you guys. So yeah, let me know what you think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCeHbhOdGy8&feature=emb_logo


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